


The Chillicothe Horror Affair

by Taylor Dancinghands (tdancinghands)



Series: Sentinels from UNCLE [2]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Lovecraftian, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 07:10:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7705327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tdancinghands/pseuds/Taylor%20Dancinghands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When UNCLE's April Dancer and Mark Slate apprehend a Thrush scientist in central Ohio who seems completely incoherent and dies suddenly while being questioned, UNCLE's best are called for. Joining bonded Sentinel/Guide pair Mark and April on the site, the four agents soon find that their case is connected to a much older and more terrible mystery. What is the horror that lies deep in the earth of Chillicothe, and how is it able to tear the two Sentinels away from their Guides?</p><p>The Anthropology graduate student who joins them, and a couple of local cavers know much that can help, but none of them can imagine the response that comes from all around, in answer to the Guides' plight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: "...His Unspeakable Name..."

Even in the grainy, black and white video image, the old man's constant tics and shudders were clearly visible. His wrists were manacled to the table in front of him and he tugged at them repeatedly, making him look even more piteous.

"You must let me go," he implored. "The Master calls. He must be obeyed."

His clothes suggested a man of station, probably a scientist in the upper ranks of Thrush, but he currently presented a disheveled wreck of a creature, white hair and beard disordered and his clothes torn and dirty..

"And who is this master of yours?" the UNCLE interrogator pressed. The prisoner shook his head wildly.

"Can't… Mustn't… not His Unspeakable Name… no! Not that! Anything but that!" He voice ascended to a near shriek in the last syllables and his eyes rolled. The UNCLE interrogator sighed and tried a different line of questioning.

"What were you doing there, in Chillicothe? What were you doing for Thrush?"

"For my old masters?" the old man answered, calming somewhat. "Foolish, foolish men, to think to control the Master. Thought they could use Him to control others…. Thought they could use Him… " He burst into hysterical laughter, which continued for a disturbingly long time.

Napoleon recognised the interrogator, now sitting back and frowning at the deranged captive, as agent and Guide Mark Slate. His Sentinel, agent April Dancer, leaned against the wall behind him, looking as cool as a cucumber, though Napoleon knew she could leap into action at the first sign of danger.

"So," Mark began again once the prisoner had settled somewhat. "It was some sort of mind control scheme you lot were after?"

"Oh yes, so very foolish, what they wanted," the captive said, almost lucid sounding now.

"And why was that?" Mark probed.

"Why, the Master does not control us," the old man said, as though speaking to children. "He loves us, so very much that we cannot help but feel it. To be so loved, of course we would do anything for the Master. Anything he desires." He began to weep as he said this, large tears rolling down his stubbled cheeks.

Mark now turned to address someone off screen. "And you're absolutely sure he hasn't been drugged?" he asked.

"Tox screens all came back negative, Agent Slate," came the answer. Mark shook his head, glancing over at the prisoner with an expression of distaste.

"I honestly don't think we're going to get any more out of this fellow," he said. "He's either high on something or he's completely off his nut."

"What if we remove him from the influence of this 'master' for a few days," April suggested. "Maybe he'll 'come down' eventually."

This their captive seemed to have understood, for he suddenly began to struggle frantically in his bonds. "No!" he cried. "Please! I must return to the Master. He needs me; he loves me. I must return to serve him. Please!"

"Then tell us!" Mark demanded. "Who is your master? What does he want?"

"What does he want?" the old man's demeanor changed again, like a switch being thrown. "What does he want? He wants the home he left so long ago; millennia, eons ago. He dreams of it…" Now the man's speech became unintelligible gibberish, a weird sing-song recitation of nonsense words and sounds which he delivered while swaying back and forth in his chair.

Normally, television images don't project anything for an empath to pick up, but listening to the weird words and chants coming from the tinny speakers in Waverly's office monitor made Napoleon's skin crawl. A sidelong glance at his partner revealed that Illya felt the same.

"Stop that this instant!" Mark commanded, using his Guide voice, Napoleon was sure, for the man simmered down after only a few more seconds. April gave her Guide an appreciative glance.

"That home is no more," the prisoner continued, as if he'd never left off answering Mark's question. "But we can help him recreate it here, on Earth. It is what he wants more than anything, and there is nothing we will not do to please him. Praise him! Praise his Unspeakable Name!"

"That's it," said Mark, standing. "We're done for today. Take him back to his cell and we'll arrange for transport to the psych center. He's right off his nut for sure."

"Nooo!!" the old man wailed as April came around to unfasten his cuffs from the table top. "No! Do not let them take me from you! Help me I beg you… Save me! Your servant calls upon you, Oh…"

If the bizarre syllables the old man had uttered before had set Napoleon's skin to crawling, the 'words' he spoke now had every hair on his head standing straight up. He had no idea how a human voice could be made to produce such contortions of sound, though there was an audible pattern to them which the old man repeated several times before they evolved into a piercing shriek.

He lurched to his feet as he wailed, clutching at his head, and blood began to run from his nose and mouth. His eyes bulged and rolled in their sockets and he collapsed onto the floor, convulsing. His body twitched for a few moments, then fell still, and it seemed pretty clear to Napoleon that he was dead.

In the silence that followed Mark could be heard saying something blisteringly profane, then Waverly leaned forward to switch the television off.

"I'll have you know that that was every bit as disturbing to watch the second time as it was the first," he said. "I don't suppose either of you need to see anything again?"

"Absolutely not, sir," Illya said, sounding as shaken as Napoleon had ever heard him.

"How on Earth did Mark and April happen across this character?" Napoleon asked.

"Agents Slate and Dancer are in southern Ohio," Waverly answered, sitting back to refill and light his pipe, "investigating rumors of a Thrush operation in the vicinity. This… late unfortunate was found wandering along the road by a couple of local lads. They couldn't get anything coherent out of him so they turned him over to the Chillicothe police, and they, to their credit, noticed that the lab coat he was wearing had Thrush insignia on it, so they called UNCLE."

"So he probably was a scientist," Napoleon said. "And now just another victim of something gone horribly wrong on account of Thrush meddling where they oughtn't."

"Have they learned anything else about the man?" Illya asked. "Or where he was working?"

"We're running his photo through our identity bank now," Waverly said. "As for where he was based, the Chillicothe police tell us that they had reports of a disturbance with shots fired in the vicinity of the Mound City Group National Monument. They found no evidence of any disturbance when they responded, save for the mysterious appearance of this scientist the next day."

"Mound City Group?" Napoleon asked.

"Ancient Indian ruins or some such," Waverly said. "It's in your briefing." He handed each of the agents a short stack of file folders. "You can read them on the train to Columbus which leaves at two o'clock. Agents Dancer and Slate will meet you at the station with a car."

~*~ ~*~ ~*~


	2. Act I: "...something must have brainwashed them."

"I suppose the old man made you watch the interrogation?" Mark asked once they'd settled everyone into the car. It was a 4-door, at least—a new model Dodge Dart—but it wasn't exactly roomy, with four agents and Napoleon and Illya's luggage.

"Of course he did," Illya said. "Though to give him credit, he apparently sat through it twice himself."

Mark, sitting in the front seat next to his Sentinel, who was driving, shuddered visibly. "And the creepiest thing of all, Napoleon," he said. "He wasn't kidding about the love business. It was all I could feel from him, until the end, where it was clear that he would rather die horribly than be parted from this… master thing."

Now Napoleon shuddered. "Glad it was you and not me," he said. "You think we're going to encounter more people like that? That Thrush scientist can't have been the only one."

"I've been thinking the same," April said. "We worked out a theory that the disturbance the Chillicothe police responded to was an attempt by Thrush to get their scientist out of the clutches of… whatever this is, which only partially succeeded."

"You think they got their scientist, who probably raised the alarm himself," Illya speculated, "but were themselves taken over, leaving their rescuee to wander off."

"Something like that," April replied. "We investigated the site of the reported disturbance—a parking lot by the local golf course—and found some evidence of a struggle, involving several people and a couple of firearms which were abandoned at the site. Both standard Thrush issue sidearms."

"Thrush left behind guns but no bodies?" Napoleon said. "Something must have brainwashed them."

"That's our thinking as well," Mark said.

"So I've found the country club," Illya said, having gotten a map out. "And the 'Mound City National Monument' isn't far. Where precisely was our deranged Thrush scientist picked up?"

"That's what we're going to find out now, in fact," said April. "We've arranged a meeting at a local diner with the two young men who spotted him and brought him in to the police. We'll be there in another hour or so."

Gazing out the window at the passing scenery, Napoleon found nothing to suggest any secret or sinister goings on. Rolling green farmland, brightly painted barns, churches and vegetable stands were what they passed as they drove along the two lane state highway. Schools proudly proclaimed their mascots, lakeside campgrounds declared themselves with signs featuring hooked fish and smiling kids in tents and the gas stations all offered bait for sale. Everything about it seemed innocent and idyllic.

The diner was no different, with a large sign on the roof in the shape of a hamburger and soda, and a section out front for drive-in dining. April parked their rented Dodge in the section for indoor dining and the four agents went in to meet the two good samaritans who'd brought the wayward Thrush lamb into the police.

"Pleased to meet y'all," said the smaller and younger of the two. "I'm Dan Hoover, and this here is Luther Jamison." Both young men stood immediately in the presence of a lady, and shook the four agents' hands with ernest politeness. Luther was taller, of a slightly heavier build than his friend and black. Dan had a lean and wiry build, with an unruly mop of red hair and freckles. They all settled into a booth, Luther and Dan on one side, Illya, Napoleon and Mark on the other and April at the head. She flagged the waitress down and ordered sodas and fries for everyone.

"The police said y'all wanted to know more about that old fellow we picked up the other day," said Dan. "But I don't know what we can tell you that we didn't tell the cops."

"He okay?" Luther asked. "He seemed kinda confused when we found him, but my old grand-poppy, he got that way in the end, so I figured someone'd wanna know where he got to."

"It's kind of you to ask after him, Luther," April said. "But I'm sorry to say that because he was so severely mentally disturbed, he was never able to tell us even his name. We're trying to find out who he was and what happened to him, and we hope that you may be able to provide some small clue about what that might have been."

"That's too bad, ma'am," Dan said. "But we don't know nothing about him. He was lucky nobody hit him on the road when we found him, cause he was weaving on and off it like he was drunk. That's what we thought he was at first."

"He's lucky we stopped to pick him up too," Luther added. "'Cause you ain't supposed to pick up hitchhikers that close to the State Pen, but we figured he didn't look like no prisoner." Napoleon recalled seeing a large state correctional institution on the map, virtually across the road from the Mound City Monument. That certainly put him in the same neighborhood.

"Can you remember what time it was?" Napoleon asked. The two boys exchanged glances, but he caught no intent to mislead between them.

"I guess it was just around ten in the morning," said Luther. "We had the day off and was planning on going caving all day."

"We did, later," Dan confirmed. "But we didn't have so much time then, so we went to Ash Cave, which was closer, instead of Deadman cave, like we planned."

"And this 'Deadman cave' you meant to go to," Illya asked now. "Is it far from where you found the old man?"

"We was nearly there!" said Dan. "I was kinda sore about it, to be honest, 'cause we was planning on making it past the second big room. That's as far as anyone in the caving club has gotten."

Now it was the four agents exchanging looks. "You lads may well have saved yourself a deal of trouble by changing your destination," Mark said.

"Has anyone else in your club, or anyone else that you know of, been in that cave recently?" April now asked. Luther shook his head and Dan shrugged.

"Not so far as we know," he said. "It's a pretty wet cave, so don't no one go in there till late spring. We wanted to be the first this year so's we could make the try before anybody else."

"This cave," Napoleon speculated, voicing the question all four agents had on their minds. "It doesn't run under the prison, does it?"

"I guess it does," said Dan. "The entrance is in a culvert, about a mile to the west of it, but then the main passage heads east, more or less, for a good spell."

"You boys wouldn't happen to have the time this afternoon to show us just where that culvert is?" April asked, with that certain lilt to her voice that nearly guaranteed that the answer would be yes.

It was about a forty minute drive from the diner in downtown Chillicothe to the wide spot off to the side of the winding, two lane state road where the two young men pulled off and parked their pickup truck (with a gun rack, naturally). There was another vehicle already parked there—a dirty white Volkswagen camper with curtained windows.

"Anyone you know?" Napoleon asked the two boys once they'd parked their cars and gotten out. The place they'd come to stop was a wooded area of scrub oak and scotch pine with the road grade a dozen feet above the surrounding forest. Below them, a small stream trickled through a culvert passing under the road.

Dan started to shake his head, but then Luther seemed to recall something. "It's that lady from the college, the one who's studying the Indians what built them mounds."

"Oh yeah!" Dan recalled. "And she asked us about Deadman cave too, now you mention it."

"What did she want to know?" Illya asked, immediately suspecting some further Thrush activity.

"Pretty much the same as you, but she was more interested in the mounds, like if the cave went near there." Dan answered.

Of course, it must, Napoleon figured, if it ran in the direction of the prison. April approached the van, peering in through the windows.

"She's been sleeping here," April said. "And cooking too, but she's not here now. I don't imagine she's far." Even as she spoke Illya sensed someone approaching from the woods below.

"Just off answering a call of nature, if you must know," said the dark haired young woman climbing the steep, weedy slope up to the road. "Can I help you folks?"

Napoleon stepped forward, proffering his ID. "Napoleon Solo, senior agent for the U.N.C.L.E. We're here investigating some possible illegal activity in this area."

"Abigail Blackfish, doctoral candidate in Native American Anthropology, Ohio State University" the woman replied, hands on hips. "What kind of illegal activity, if I may ask?"

From what Napoleon could sense from her, she was just what she said she was. No Thrush connection here, he let Illya know with a small nod.

"That's not something we're able to share at the moment," April stepped up to answer her question. "But I can tell you we're investigating an older man who was picked up near here a couple of days ago. We don't know much about him or what he was doing, but we do know that he was working for a… very dangerous organization, with which UNCLE is, unfortunately, very familiar. May we ask you, what is the object of your study here?"

"You're not under any kind of suspicion, miss," Mark Slate put in, forestalling her reflexive distrust. "But it's possible that something you're studying could help us solve our case."

"I doubt your case has anything to do with the Mound Builders civilization which was centered around here hundreds of years ago," she replied, still defensive. "Does it?"

"Not unless they had anything to do with the cave whose entrance is just underneath us in this culvert?" Napoleon guessed.

"There are quite a few myths and legends about it," Abigail admitted. "And I'm trying to find out if there's any truth to them. That's the core of my doctoral work."

"Do you suppose there might have been anything in those legends to attract Thrush to this site?" April speculated. They all looked at the researcher who sighed and muttered to herself.

"Right. Indian myths of Southern Ohio 101, once again. Hope you don't mind if I fix myself a cup of coffee first," she said, opening the side door of the van to reveal a snug living quarters with a bed, desk and kitchenette with a propane range and fridge. She set a coffeepot on the burner and used a sparker to light the gas.

Dan and Luther took the time to assemble a collection of caving helmets and lamps from the back of their truck and Illya and April sauntered over to have a look. Napoleon loosened his tie, as the weather was warm and humid, then decided to ditch his jacket altogether, tossing it into their car.

"You'll want a jacket of some sort, if we do go in that cave, mate," Mark pointed out. "They stay around 50 degrees fahrenheit all year. Natural climate control."

"Sounds pretty nice, right about now," Napoleon said, opening his collar.

"Probably feels nice in the wintertime too, when it's below freezing outside," April noted. "I suppose that's why people used to live in caves, way back when."

"You'd think," Abigail replied. "And yet the Shawnee, who lived hereabouts, never, ever went into any of them. My great grandma was a Shawanee, and she would never go into any caves. She told my mom, when she was a little girl, that they were full of bad medicine, and the deeper you went the worse it was."

She had her coffee now, Napoleon saw, and he and the others wandered back to stand in front of her van or to or lean on the agents' adjacent rental car, attentive as students at a lecture.

"My grandma died on the Trail of Tears while giving birth to my uncle," she began, "so my mom and her little brother were both raised by their grandma—my great grandma. She had a ton of superstitions like that, but she never told my mom any of the old stories because, she said, it was better to forget all those indian things and be like whites now. She never let my mom wear her hair in braids, for instance." April made a small sad sound at this and the others said nothing, though Mark and Illya both looked slightly shocked. As foreigners, they'd possibly never even heard of the Trail of Tears. 

"But when I was a kid I wanted to know about those stories," Abigail continued. "So that's why I became an anthropologist. I especially wanted to know any Shawnee legends about caves in this area, and and it turns out there's quite a few. Most of them start with something about a giant battle between gods in the very distant past, in which the losers were exiled or thrown down into a crack in the earth, where they were trapped or imprisoned. Then there are some which tell about attempted escapes, and various heroes, some with something like super powers—almost like Sentinel abilities— or help from the 'good' gods, who prevent their escape. One of the legends connects the mounds here with a sort of garrison of guardians, whose duty it was to guard this particular avenue of escape. Another claims that the mounds themselves served as the protection, with some magical charm buried at the base."

"If there was," Illya commented, "it was surely destroyed around the time of World War I, when the US Army built a training base on the site. It was part of the briefing we were all supposed to read," he added when everyone looked at him.

"You are correct, sir," Abigail said. "And prior to that a couple of archeologists excavated the site and sent all the artifacts they found to the British museum. The Shawnee have been suing to get them back."

"So…" April speculated, "if these legends are in any way true, the thing preventing the 'evil gods' trapped below from escaping has been missing since before 1917. Could Thrush have worked out the same thing? Because if they did, this is exactly the kind of trouble they're apt to go looking for."

"You're right about that," Mark agreed. "And they may have also investigated the collection at the British Museum. Have you any idea, Miss Blackfish, what sort of objects the British Museum has from this site?"

"No, sir, and I'd like very much to know, but they haven't answered any of the letters I've written requesting an inventory, at least," the researcher answered peevishly.

"UNCLE can fix that quickly enough," Napoleon said, pulling out his communicator. When he uncapped it, however, he found he was unable to send or receive any signal.

"If that's some kinda radio thingy, it won't work within 3 miles of the prison," Luther commented.

"Ah, of course," Napoleon said, recapping the device. "In that case, I promise you, Miss Blackfish, that I'll have UNCLE request a complete inventory of that collection as soon as we're able to make contact again. I imagine we'll have it within 24 hours, and we'll make sure you get a copy as soon as we do."

"Well!" Abigail said with surprise. "You UNCLE folks sure know the way to a graduate researcher's heart. Thanks!"

"If Thrush has had a look at those artifacts, we need to see them too," Illya said. "And if they haven't, we will want to learn what we can from them before they do. May I ask, Miss Blackfish, what were you hoping to find by venturing into Deadman's cave yourself?"

"How'd you know I was planning to go in?" she asked.

"Well, for one thing, you are parked here, near the cave entrance," he replied, "and for another, you have a recently purchased tin of carbide lamp fuel under the front seat of your van. It is unopened, but the scent is very distinct."

Abigail froze where she stood, coffee cup halfway to her lips. "You're a Sentinel," she said, eyes wide with surprise.

"So is she," Illya said with a quirk of a smile, pointing at April.

"Y'all are Sentinel secret agents?" Dan said in astonishment. "Well, shee-it!"

Illya and Napoleon shared a silent glance. Best not to mention the Guides for the moment.

"Naturally, quite a few UNCLE agents are Sentinels," April said. "I find a great deal of satisfaction putting my Sentinel talents to use for UNCLE's missions. Now, about getting into that cave?"

Both Dan and Luther had been adamant that no one go into the cave without proper equipment—a helmet and two sources of light at a minimum—but fortunately enough, as president and vice-president of their high school caving club, they had the keeping of the club's collective gear, currently stored in their pickup truck. They'd laid out helmets and lamps for the two pairs of agents, who supplied their own flashlights as the backup light source. They even had coveralls for Napoleon and April. Mark and Illya were both dressed more casually and didn't mind getting muddy.

Miss Blackfish had her own gear, mostly brand new, and Dan and Luther were quite helpful in showing her how the carbide headlamp worked and how to adjust her helmet. When all this was accomplished the two local boys lead them down the embankment to where a stream crossed under the road through a five foot high concrete culvert. Everyone fired their lanterns up and they waded through the stream into the culvert.

Halfway through there was a gap in the concrete, from which more water splashed into the culvert. It didn't look like it led anywhere to Napoleon, but Dan crouched down and disappeared into it, calling for the others to come along. Abigail and the two Sentinels followed, then Napoleon and Mark, with Luther bringing up the rear. As he ducked down into the narrow, rocky opening, the last light from the culvert was soon behind them, and Napoleon's world became reduced to the circle of illumination cast by his quietly hissing lamp, and those of the others ahead of him in the passage.

For several yards their progress was made by sliding and scrambling down a slope of broken rocks and mud slicks. Then Napoleon saw the lamps ahead of him throwing their light out to the walls of a larger room below. Napoleon was required to climb down an irregular rock face before he could join them, but when he did it was a real relief to stand upright on something like a level surface.

Abigail was scanning the walls and ceilings for signs of habitation, but Napoleon couldn't see anything for himself that might indicate that ancient people had ever been here.

"That must be a relatively modern entrance, I suppose," she said. "I wonder where else this cave comes out that might have been known in the past."

"Mr Nichols, our geology teacher, says that a lot of the caves hereabouts are probably connected," Dan said. "He and his old caving buddies used to go into one cave and try to find a way to come out from another. Nobody ever found another way into this cave, so far as we know, but that don't mean there ain't a way. Y'all ready to go on?"

They were, so he directed them towards a gap between two rocks that Napoleon never would have figured as a way forward, as it proved to be. "You boys seem to know this place pretty well," he heard April say from up ahead, as they crawled on hands and knees through the next stretch of passage.

"Sure, we been in here three or four times," said Luther. "But only up to the room we're coming to next. It's a pretty big room, and we didn't get a chance yet to look at all the possible side passages from there."

Napoleon was pleased to hear that another 'room' would be coming up, but before they reached it, the passage they were in got so low that they all had to crawl on their bellies through muddy water. Then there was a short 'chimney' straight down a dozen feet or so, another few yards walking through an icy cold stream, above which hung some really lovely stalactites, then a narrow bit of passage through which they all had to edge sideways, and a long sloping mud slick, which was fun going down, but was clearly going to be a chore going back up.

The passage made a sharp turn at the base of the mud slick, so that the vast room revealed after the turn came as a complete surprise. April's shout of triumph echoed off the walls in an eerie sort of way. Dan seemed surprised by something too.

"Hey, what the hell is this?" he said, just as Napoleon came out of the passage himself.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~


	3. Act II: "...There's something not right here."

It was an impressively vast space, with the ceiling at least twenty to thirty feet above them. Another stream (or perhaps the same one again) ran along one side, and the room followed it, promising further wonders ahead in the dark. Where Dan was standing, Napoleon now saw, was an even larger flowstone formation, with stalactites, stalagmites and even some 'curtain' formations, but some of these were broken, newly so, for the pieces could be seen at Dan's feet.

"I take it that it wasn't this way when you were here last?" Mark said, aiming his light up at the damaged formations.

"Hell no!" Dan said angrily. "Our club pledge says we're supposed to protect the caves, and leave 'em like we found 'em. Folks at the Grotto, they'll say it was us kids who done it, though!"

"The Grotto?" Napoleon asked.

"Local chapters of the National Speleological Society," Abigail explained, adding her flashlight to the lamps aimed at the broken formations above. "They often sponsor high school caving clubs around the country. What's that black thing up there?"

"It's a cable," Illya said, peering intently. "An electrical cable, I would imagine."

"Electric?" said Luther, coming down to join them at last. "Ain't nobody s'posed to be running electricity down here. This is all county land."

"Dollars to doughnuts that's coming from the prison," Napoleon said.

"You'll get no takers here," April said. "The real question is, where is it going to?"

With the two Sentinels' keen eyes to track it, the whole group made their way slowly down the length of the room, following the black cable as it snaked along the ceiling, leaving the occasional remains of destroyed formations on the ground below. The two boys expressed both outrage at the damage and indignation over how they would surely be unjustly accused, until Napoleon and Abigail both promised that they'd testify to their innocence if called upon to do so.

The room narrowed somewhat as they moved through it, forcing them all single file along the stream bank, then it opened out again, revealing the thing that the four UNCLE agents had been expecting at last. They were not expecting to find it in such a condition however, and the boys were not expecting it at all.

"What the hell?" Dan exclaimed, while Luther stood, dumbfounded as he shone his light around, muttering, "Lord a'mighty… who done all this?"

It was small for a Thrush lab, but they'd had limited space in which to build. Two computer banks remained standing, and another lay face down where it had fallen on the rocky floor, black scorch marks on the wall behind it telling part of the story. There were two desks, one of which was overturned, and a row of file cabinets, drawers all opened revealing blackened ashes of the papers they'd once contained, though more than a few were scattered on the muddy ground.

Other furniture and equipment of a less identifiable nature lay overturned and strewn about, along with masses of the uncoiled data tapes from the computers and a fair amount of broken glass. One of the overturned chairs still had a Thrush liveried lab coat hanging on it, and a small notebook Illya found under the overturned computer proved to be a Thrush manual of some sort. It did not seem that anyone had been here for weeks.

The two young cavers hung back by the entrance to watch, as did Abigail, standing with her arms crossed in stern disapproval. The four UNCLE agents moved over the scene with practiced intent, gathering what information they could from the wreckage, trying to reconstruct the events leading to the installation of the lab and its demise.

"I suppose it was autumn the last time any of you lads was down here?" Mark asked.

"It weren't us, but two of the guys from the club, Geoffrey and Lee," Dan said. "They were here just before Halloween, said it was getting pretty wet already. Pretty sure they got this far back, and they sure woulda said something if they'd-a seen anything like this."

Luther shook his head. "Yeah, I talked to Lee about it the next day at school. He said the crick was high already and he hadda walk in water up to his knees to get to the back room."

"The back room, that's this one?" Napoleon asked. Dan and Luther both nodded. "Well that gives us a pretty clear time frame. Chances are, I'd say, that one of those side passages you were hoping to explore leads to the prison. Thrush would have bribed and coerced the prison guards and administration to let the prison be used as a staging area for all this. That's right up Thrush's ally."

"So, you're saying that a criminal organization has most likely taken over the State Pen?" Abigail said. "Well that's just typical, isn't it."

"It is for Thrush," Napoleon replied. "But that's just a means to an end. They're here looking for some kind of mind control… device or technique. So that means there's yet another passage somewhere around here that leads to…"

"The thing whose name our unfortunate Thrush scientist used to kill himself," said Mark. "Are we sure we want to find that?"

"Quiet, everyone," Illya said suddenly, before anyone could come up with an answer to Mark's question. "I think I hear something."

"Yeah, me too," said April. The others obligingly fell silent as the two Sentinels listened into the dark. Napoleon stepped forward to touch Illya's shoulder, his way of anchoring his Sentinel, allowing him to stretch his senses further.

"It's a baby!" April said after a moment. "A baby crying."

"Yes, that's what it is," Illya said. "A baby crying… it's afraid; it needs our help…"

A strange feeling came over Napoleon just then, as if some influence were, impossibly, coming between him and Illya. Never in his life had Napoleon doubted his Sentinel's senses and yet… "Are you sure, Illya? A baby? So far down in this cave?"

"I know what I'm hearing!" Illya snapped. "It's a baby… a terrified baby, come on!"

"Yes!" April agreed. "Can't you hear it too? We have to help!"

"Wait, April luv," Mark now cried. "There's something… I can't… I've lost our connection. There's something not right here."

Yes, that was it exactly, Napoleon thought. "Illya," he said urgently. "Mark's right. Something's wrong. We need to get out of here!"

"No! We need to get the baby first," Illya insisted, pulling away from Napoleon's grasp and heading towards a dark corner of the room. April moved to follow him.

Napoleon was wondering what he could do to break the spell their Sentinels seemed to be under when suddenly he, and the others in the room, really could hear something. There were footsteps coming, from the same direction that Illya and April were heading—lots of them.

"Dan, Luther," Napoleon commanded, unzipping his mud smeared coveralls to draw out his UNCLE special, loaded with sleep darts. "Get yourselves and Abigail out of here, now! We'll try to join you as soon as we can, and if we don't, go to the authorities, tell them to contact UNCLE and most important of all, don't let anybody send any more Sentinels down here!"

The two young cavers hesitated for a split second, reluctant to run away from a fight, but they saw the importance of getting the 'lady' to safety, and so complied. Napoleon hoped to be following them soon enough, but also knew they needed an immediate 'plan B'." Shadowy shapes were already emerging into the destroyed Thrush lab, though the erratic lights of his and Mark's headlamps made targeting them almost impossible.

There was a terrible blankness in the part of Napoleon's mind where he usually felt his Sentinel and he realized that not only did he not know what his partner was thinking, he didn't even know where is was anymore. It was impossible to tell in the dark, whether the Sentinels had been captured, killed or simply ignored by the figures moving towards them, but Napoleon heard no signs of struggle.

"Interlopers!" Napoleon heard instead. "Unbelievers! Trespassers! Defend the Master from the Profane! They will come to worship Him! Come…! Come to feel his love!"

Napoleon made a split second decision. "Fall back!!" he called, using his Guide voice at full strength. "Mark, Illya, April! Fall back now!" Even as he spoke, Napoleon felt the Sentinels' names fall dead on his tongue. They had not reached their target, but Mark's had. There was a scuffle and a discharge of an UNCLE special in the dark, then Mark was at his side, pausing at the door.

"I don't think the others are coming," he said, voice as bereft as Napoleon felt.

"I know," Napoleon all but choked out. "We need to get away. We'll come back for them as soon as we can."

"You know it, mate," Mark said, turning to accompany his fellow Guide back up the passage. "And we'll get them back. Make no mistake."

Napoleon would forever remember his and Mark's desperate scramble through the dark passages of Deadman Cave as the very quintessence of nightmarish. Thinking he would easily find the route he'd taken into the cave, Napoleon soon found that the features he could make out in the light of his headlamp seemed utterly unfamiliar when viewed from the opposite direction. Fortunately, he was able to make out the lamps of the two young cavers and Miss Blackfish moving up ahead, and from that deduced the way forward.

More fortunately still, Luther spotted them following behind and waited, calling out the way ahead when they got disoriented. Climbing the steep, mud-slick slope of the passage leading to the big room was only possible with the length of climbers sling fastened along one side, which Luther pointed out to them when they arrived at the bottom. Their pursuers could still be heard, shouting epithets as they followed, so Napoleon cut the climber's aid once they'd reached the top, much to Luther's displeasure.

"We'll see to it that it's put back, when we've finished here," Napoleon promised. "UNCLE will see to the cleanup and restoration, trust me, but those folks sound like they're out for blood, and whatever we can do to slow them down, we'll do."

The cave itself would surely slow them down, Napoleon considered, as there is absolutely no way to 'hurry up' while you're belly-crawling through mud, but none of these ordeals seemed to decrease their ire in any way. The climb and scramble up to the first room, and from there back up to the culvert, passed in a blur for Napoleon.

Once back out in the open air, Napoleon spared only a moment to revel in the freedom. Even as he stepped into the sunlight, he was assessing the scene strategically. The zealous devotees of the Thing with the Unspeakable Name would soon come pouring out of both ends of the culvert, surrounding the high ground of the road, which would be the most defensible spot. Time to circle the wagons.

Clambering up the steep embankment back to the road where the three cars were parked, Napoleon shouted out instructions to that end.

"Get the vehicles arranged into a triangle, so we can take shelter in the center," he said between panting breaths. "You boys have any shells for those shotguns?"

"Well sure," said Dan, getting into the driver's seat to back the truck into position. "Just buckshot, though."

"Anybody got any rock salt?" Abigail asked, having pulled her van into formation.

"Yeah," Luther said. "But we ain't got time to load it into the shells, now." Indeed, Napoleon, getting spare clips, lethal and otherwise, out of the trunk of their car, could already hear the first muffled cries of "Defilers! Vandals! Get 'em!" emerging from the culvert below.

"Not for the guns!" Abigail said forcefully. "For protection. Just hand it over. I'll take care of it."

It took Dan a few seconds to extract a partially used bag of rock salt from under the back seat, and Abigail all but snatched it out of his hands. She could hear the approaching voices as well. With hasty but practiced motions, Abigail began pouring a line of salt around the outer perimeter of the three parked cars. Protection, Napoleon thought, the way he'd heard of protecting against vampires by pouring a line of salt across your threshold. Abigail was enclosing them in a circle of salt, and was just finishing, as the first few enraged devotees appeared on the road.

They were armed with only crude weapons, such as truncheons and sections of pipe, but there were really quite a lot of them, and more were coming.

"Are those jail uniforms?" Mark said, standing in the cover of the UNCLE rental beside Napoleon, checking his weapon. Indeed, most of the approaching attackers wore unmistakable, black and white striped prisoners' coveralls, but there were prison guards among the crowd as well. Their former distinctions seemed to mean nothing now, for they stood shoulder to shoulder as they charged.

"Dan, Luther, fire at the ground in front of them!" Napoleon shouted, as he and Mark, on the other side of their 'fortress', darted a few of the leaders of the charge. Looking over his shoulder, Napoleon could see that the shotgun blasts were deterring the bulk of the assailants on that side, as the suddenly slumping bodies among the fray did on theirs. Elsewhere, their would-be attackers did seem to be put off by the salt line, approaching to within inches, but not daring to step over.

"Stop them!" Abigail called suddenly, and looking where she pointed Napoleon saw one attacker coming with a long stick, clearly intending to sweep the salt away. Mark darted him and Luther shot the stick itself, reducing its length to fragments.

"Get back you!" Dan shouted from the other side, firing another round at some of the enthralled prisoners who were throwing rocks at the salt line. One of the rocks fell too close, almost breaking the line of salt, but a second later Abigail darted out, kicked the rock away and poured a bit more salt out to fill the gap. Dan fired another shot in her wake as a warning.

"How long do you think we can keep this up?" Mark asked quietly, glancing over his shoulder at the boxes of shells on the ground next to where Dan and Luther stood. The two UNCLE agents had another couple of clips each, but if the attackers came at them in force, they'd be in trouble. Eventually food and water would begin to be an issue too, but this was a regular county road in middle America, not some remote wasteland.

"Sooner or later, someone's gotta come down this road," Napoleon muttered, darting another rock thrower. "If they don't want their cover blown on the whole prison operation, they don't dare let themselves be seen by the police."

And as if his words had summoned them, Napoleon and Mark both soon heard the very welcome sounds of approaching police sirens. There followed a moment of confusion and directionlessness among the attackers, then they slowly turned, gathered up all their weapons and fallen comrades, and retreated back down the embankment. Less than a minute later, there was no trace of them, and the lights of the police cars could just be seen in the distance.

There was enough time before the police arrived for Napoleon to shuck his coveralls and put his suit jacket back on. He stood in front of their circled vehicles as the black and white car pulled off the road, hands in the open, and a welcoming smile on his face. The two officers who exited the car still looked at him suspiciously, though their expressions changed to confusion as they observed the others who came to stand beside him.

"What in the Sam Hill is going on here?" the older of the two officers, slightly paunchy with a sandy grey mustache, demanded.

"We had reports of shots fired," said the younger, a beanpole of a fellow with a long face to match. "And I can smell the cordite. You boys wanna tell us what's up?"

So you're a Sentinel, eh, officer Cranston, Napoleon thought, reading the fellow's badge. He stepped forward and extended his hand.

"Napoleon Solo, agent of the U.N.C.L.E. Here on an investigation of some untoward activity near Chillicothe," he began smoothly. "You may have met my colleague, Agent Slate, who was here investigating the John Doe you folks picked up last week."

"Heard about you," the older officer, Watts, according to his badge, replied. "Some Brit with a girl Sentinel?"

"That's me, guv," said Mark, offering his hand as well. "The sticky thing is, my 'girl Sentinel' is in a bit of a spot at the moment, his 'boy Sentinel' too, and we could really use your help."

"What kind of help?" Cranston, the Sentinel, asked.

"First of all," Napoleon said, modulating his voice to portray his trustworthiness to its fullest. "If you contact the prison this very minute and tell them to do a bed check, they'll find a number of inmates and more than a few guards missing. I realize that's a lot to take on faith, but time really is of the essence."

Watts looked dubious, but Cranston was with him. "He's a Guide, sir, and he's on the level. I'm sure." Watts held his gaze for a moment, then went to the police car radio.

"Okay, now y'all owe me an explanation, full story: What's happened to your Sentinels and why are Dan and Luther mixed up in all this?"

Before Napoleon could frame and answer, Abigail strode up and inserted herself into the conversation. "They're here as cave guides; UNCLE is paying them as consultants, aren't they?" Napoleon nearly laughed aloud at her audacity, but it was a good idea nonetheless.

"And I'm Abigail Blackfish. They're consulting me on cultural and historical issues involved with the case." They shook hands, almost tentatively, and only then did Napoleon realize.

"She's an unbonded Guide," he said to Mark. "How did we not notice?"

"Well, we have been working on a case, guv," Mark said. "That does tend to distract a fellow."

The handshake ended with fleeting, bittersweet smiles from both the officer and Miss Blackfish. No flash of recognition, then; no sense of missing pieces fitting together. It didn't always happen like that with Sentinels and Guides, but it occurred often enough that one hoped, every time a potential bond-mate came one's way. Napoleon remembered the feeling all too well, and felt a pang of longing as he recalled his and Illya's own tumultuous moment of mutual recognition.

Napoleon felt Mark's hand on his shoulder, a reminder that he was not alone in his distress. "Keep your chin up, mate," he murmured. "We'll find 'em."

Dan stepped up now, filling the awkward silence with his own narrative. "It's true what she said," he addressed Officer Watts. "We did take 'em down into Deadman Cave, and we done it proper like, with all the safety gear. But there's something… something bad going on down there. Something is getting into people's heads, like that old guy we picked up the other day."

"And that's not all," Luther elaborated. "Somebody done built some kinda scientific laboratory down there, with computers and everything, but them other folks, the mind-controlled ones, I guess, they destroyed it, and then they came after us."

"Scientific laboratory? Mind control?" Officer Watts exclaimed, having returned. "What kind of sci-fi, monster-movie hogwash is this? I find out you're pullin' my leg, young man, and you're gonna land in a heap of trouble."

"His narrative is a little jumbled, officer," Napoleon interjected. "But his facts are essentially correct. An organization called Thrush, who we often find ourselves opposing in our work, does seem to have built a laboratory in the back of Deadman Cave, possibly for the purpose of researching… an entity, we think, capable of controlling the minds of its victims. The John Doe that Dan and Luther encountered was probably a highly placed scientist in this Thrush organization, but the lab we found, where he would have worked, appears to have been overrun. Possibly by the same people who were attacking us."

"And who were these people attacking you?" Watts inquired.

"Looked like they were mainly prison inmates with a few prison guards thrown in," replied Mark. "Possibly as many as one hundred of them."

"Prison inmates?" bellowed Watts, incredulously. "Where are they now?"

"Returning to the prison by way of Deadman Cave," Napoleon said. "The same way they got out."

"So, you're saying that there's been a prison break, on top of everything else?" Watts demanded. "Why didn't you say that? They thought I was completely nuts when I called them just now."

"Well, yes and no," Napoleon said, frowning. So much for that hope.

"Sir, if I may?" Officer Cranston offered. The older policeman nodded for him to go on. "I can confirm that a sizable crowd of people was here, not long ago, nearly all wearing the same shoe style, and with a… body odor not inconsistent with prison inmates. The tracks all lead to and from the culvert down below, which I happen to know is the only known entrance to Deadman Cave. That all corroborates the incidents as relayed by Agent Solo here and the others."

"So you're saying that maybe a hundred prisoners escaped as far as here," officer Watts said. "But that they turned around and went back to jail, what, when they heard us coming?"

"Yes, sir, that's it precisely," answered Napoleon.

"But why?" cried Watts, throwing up his hands. "Why return to jail once they'd gotten this far?"

"That's why we can't call it a jailbreak, officers," Abigail explained. "They did get out of the jail, but they weren't really free at all. They were all under the influence of the… thing. Whatever it is that's been down in the bottom of Deadman Cave since ancient times. I've been studying the legends about it, and there are more than a few."

"A mind controlling monster from Indian legends," officer Watts said skeptically. "I'm not writing the report on this one, Ted. It's all yours."

"Yes sir," officer Cranston said with a long suffering eye-roll. "So what's your next move? And what do you need from us?"

"Well hopefully, if there's anyone left at the prison who isn't under the influence of the, ah, whatever it is," Mark said. "They'll at least find out where the passage is that connects the cave and the prison, and block it. We spotted an electrical cable in the cave that we also think came from the prison, so they should be able to trace it that way. You lot probably ought to make sure that's going as it should."

"Yes, and make sure any Sentinels stay away, from the prison and from this area in general," Napoleon added. "Somehow Sentinels seem more vulnerable to the influence. Any prison officials who are Sentinels must be suspect."

"Right," said Cranston, taking notes. "What about me? How do you know I'm not under this influence?"

"Feeling any urge to run into the cave and rescue a crying baby?" Mark asked. Cranston looked up to stare at him, pencil frozen on his notepad.

"God almighty, I was just about to ask if anyone else heard it…" he said, turning pale.

"Close your senses down now, Sentinel," Napoleon ordered. "And get out of here. Keep any other Sentinels far away. That's the best thing you can do to help us."

"That and send us Guides!" called Abigail as the two officers retreated to their car. "As many as you can find. I have a feeling we're going to need them to rescue our Sentinels."

Napoleon had no idea what she was talking about, but something instinctual within him thought it was a very good idea. "Dan and Luther, you might as well go back with them and help spread the word. We're going to be keeping watch here for now, but there's no reason for you to stay."

"Man's got a point," said Watts. "Your folks'll be wanting you home for dinner soon, in any case."

Reluctantly, the two cavers gathered up their things and climbed into Dan's pickup. "Don't you go back in that cave without safety gear!" Luther called out the window as they pulled onto the road behind the police car.

"And a cave guide!" called Dan.

"We won't!" Mark promised as he watched them go. The sun was dipping towards the west now, and in the calm that followed the two vehicles' departure, Napoleon could hear a chorus of cicadas chirring from the treetops above.

"Coffee, anyone?" said Abigail, opening the side doors of her VW bus.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~


	4. Act III:  "...a little bird told me."

Coffee, as it turned out, was a life saver. It gave Napoleon something uncontroversial to focus on as he slowly came down from their aborted siege and came to grips with the fact of his missing Sentinel. Sitting sideways in the back seat of the rental, he let himself slump a little, elbows on knees, while he savored the hot, bitter beverage. Abigail had percolated it on her single burner camp stove, and was currently cooking up something in a pot that involved onions, ground beef and various cans of Campbell's soup.

After a moment Napoleon felt a small, sharp nudge at his knee and he straightened to let his river otter spirit guide clamber onto his lap. "What's our next move, little buddy?" Napoleon murmured as his fingers stroked soft fur. "I had a feeling a while ago, something about getting help from other Guides." The creature chirped and butted his head against Napoleon's chest as if in reply.

"I'm getting the same impression myself," said Mark, from where he sat on the Dart's hood. A magnificent doe elk stood behind him, head resting against Mark's shoulder as he scratched her ears. Curiously, Napoleon glanced across at where Abigail was busy in her camper's kitchenette only a few feet away, and then had to blink hard because, yes, there was a chipmunk sitting on her shoulder.

"The old woman—shaman really—who gave me my Guide training told me," Abigail said, still stirring the contents of the pot. "That any place where only Guides are gathered becomes a sacred space, where we make a door between the worlds."

"She could well have the right of it," Napoleon said, voice hushed. His eyes were now drawn to a dark silhouette in an old oak tree by the road, the fading day's light catching briefly on the distinctive markings on its face. It was Illya's falcon, he was sure of it, just as the small feline shape lurking in the shadows beside Abigail's camper must be April's ocelot. Glancing back at Mark, he met the man's eyes and confirmed it.

"Supper's ready, boys!" Abigail called out brightly. "Hope you all like camper's stew."

Food, naturally, had been the last thing on Napoleon's mind, but when the melamine bowl of ground beef cooked with onions and canned soup was thrust into his hands he realized that he was ravenous.

"This must be the most godawful American rubbish I've ever eaten," Mark said after a few bites. "And it's fantastic. My compliments to the chef!"

Abigail laughed, pulling a folding chair out of the van to sit on while she ate. "It's an old Girl Scout standard," she said. "Simple, filling, and easy to cook for a group, especially if they're already full of the 'best seasoning'."

"That being appetite?" Napoleon said with a smile. "I've definitely learned that caving is hungry work, even when you aren't pursued on the way out by an angry mob."

"Anthropology is hard work, gentlemen," Abigail said. "Wherever you have to go to study it. Caves, mountains, swamps, forests—people live in all those places, so that's where we go. And no matter what people I'm studying, there's at least one thing they all do the same: sharing meals together to create fellowship."

"True enough," Mark said.

"Here here!" Napoleon concurred, scraping the last of the stew from his bowl.

"Then, once that fellowship has been created," Abigail continued, as though lecturing freshmen. "The special stories can be shared. Tribal origin tales, histories, stories you don't tell strangers you've just met."

"But now we've broken bread together," Mark said, getting it.

"Now our spirit guides have come out to show themselves," Napoleon said, setting his bowl down for his otter to lick clean.

"We are fellow Guides together, and no longer strangers," Abigail said, fetching a kerosene lantern from the van which she lit and hung in the doorway. She then took something from a drawer in the kitchenette which proved to be a pack of cigarettes. Drawing one out, she lit it from the lamp's flame, took a puff and passed it to Mark, on her left.

"I don't usually smoke," she explained. "But I have to do this before I tell this story. It's the condition I was given when I first learned it."

"Okay," Napoleon said, taking the cigarette from Mark in turn, and taking his own drag. Once he'd returned it to Abigail she pinched it out, broke it open and scattered the remaining tobacco in four pinches, to the north, south, east and west.

"We don't often tell the tales from our history that concern the men and women now known as Sentinels," she began. "They were not considered suited for outsiders, and for that reason many were lost. This is the one I was able to learn about this place, and the group of mounds near here. We called those with the gifts of keener sight and hearing, quicker reactions and so forth, Watchers, and they became stronger when they made pairings with those we called Watcher's Protectors. The Watchers were known to be great warriors, and they protected the people, but the Watcher's Protector was the only one strong enough to protect our Watchers." Napoleon and Mark both nodded in appreciation of this novel perspective.

"At its height, the place now called Mound City was a spiritual fortress, and only Watcher's Protectors were allowed to reside there. The reason for the fortress was not to guard against any conventional enemy, but against the evil thing which lay below, once defeated by the Gods, but not destroyed. Because the Watcher's Protectors are warriors of the spirit, they alone could stand in the way of this evil entity, but so powerful was this entity, that several Protectors were often necessary to hold it at bay.

"How did they do this?" Abigail's rhetorical question forestalled the one forming on Napoleon's lips. "Whenever the the evil managed to capture some unwitting soul in its unending quest to escape, a group of Protectors would gather together near that person and create a Guide joining, connecting with each other on a spiritual plane. Once they were connected in this way, the entity would immediately lose its hold on anyone nearby."

Napoleon's otter seemed to like this idea, as he leaped back up onto Napoleon's lap and took his lapel in his teeth to tug at. Nearby, he could hear Mark's elk stamp her hoof.

"We have no way to number the years or decades that the Watcher's Protectors held this post. It seems that some war or famine, long before the pestilence that came with the white man, caused the last Protectors to leave their spiritual fortress. The knowledge of their long service was nearly lost as well, but I am among some few charged with keeping this tale, at least, alive. I now charge you, as Guides—as heirs of those ancient Protectors—to keep and pass on that knowledge, and to tell the tale as I have told it, observing the old traditions as befits such a tale."

"I accept your charge," Mark said seriously.

"As do I," Napoleon followed. "A wise old Sentinel in Bavaria recently told us, Illya and I, that we might come to learn about something like this here in America, and that we might have a part to play in bringing it back."

"Really?" said Abigail. "I've got some questions to ask you about that, but before I do, while we're still in a… sacred space, I'd like us to try what I spoke of—the coalescing or spirit joining between Guides. If more Guides do come, as I hope, we three will need to form the core, and be able to show the others how it's done."

"And how is it done?" Napoleon asked, brows furrowed. 

"We start by standing in the center of the circle," Abigail said, indicating with a glance the salt circle that remained on the ground around them and beckoning the other two Guides to come stand by her. "Hold hands, think about how we stand together at the center, and give honor to the four directions."

Taking Mark's and Abigail's hands, Napoleon thought about the four pinches of tobacco Abigail had scattered, and about the protective salt encircling them, and he thought about how they were all Guides, with their spirit animals visible and standing in the circle with them. As he watched, those three figures, Mark's elk, Abigail's chipmunk and his otter, each lowered their heads towards the center of the circle where they stood, and began to diffuse, their shapes transforming into one slowly expanding globe of light.

Napoleon felt it encompass him; in fact, he felt it encompass all of them, for he felt himself and the other two Guides as intertwining entities, each connected most closely with their spirit guide, but with each other as well.

**This is our fortress. Can you all feel it?**

That was Abigail—not her voice, but her essence, 'speaking' in Napoleon's mind. She had apparently done this before.

**I can feel it,** Napoleon ventured. **I can feel all of us.**

**So can I.** That was Mark. **This is quite remarkable!"

**We are at our strongest here,** Abigail told them. **And the more who join us, the stronger we will be. The evil which we fight steals the power to oppose us from those it enthralls, but the bonds which hold them are weak and will dissolve once we touch them.**

Abigail let Napoleon's and Mark's hands drop then. "That's enough for now," she said aloud. "You're both very quick studies."

"I'm glad to hear it," Napoleon said, blinking, feeling he had been very much elsewhere for the last minute, though he clearly had not moved from this spot. "We're going to have to go back into that cave to reach Illya and April, though, aren't we?"

"Yes we are," said Abigail. "But Dan and Luther will be back in the morning will all the caving gear we'll need, I'm pretty sure."

Napoleon had to admire her aplomb, even when she followed up by drafting him and Mark to wash the dishes. Fair was fair, after all, and the task was livened up with Napoleon's recounting of his and Illya's first mission together in the mountains between West Germany and Czechoslovakia.

"And the old traditions for Sentinels and Guides still exist over there?" Abigail asked, passing around a flask, once the dishes were done.

"In Western Europe, yes," Napoleon explained with a cough, after the fiery liquor therein had released its hold on his voice. "Apparently the old Sentinel Councils fell out of favor with the communists once they refused to take part in Stalin's purges."

"And so they themselves were purged, natch," said Abigail. "But what I never understood is why the Europeans who came to colonize North America didn't establish European style Sentinel councils here?"

"In England, the old Sentinel councils had close ties to the monarchy," Mark answered. "Naturally they were regarded with suspicion by the revolutionaries. And, of course, the Puritans, some of the first English colonists, didn't hold with Sentinels and Guides at all. Thought they were a form of witchcraft."

"Man, no wonder they needed the natives to help them survive," Abigail said with a last swig from the flask. They agreed to set watches before they turned in for the night, with Abigail taking the first. "You guys need any blankets or anything?" she asked before they prepared to bed down in the Dodge. "I promise I haven't infected them with smallpox."

Napoleon gave a dry chuckle at the painfully pointed joke, but accepted gratefully, as he'd been expecting to pass the night under his jacket. Mark took one as well, and the two of them settled on Napoleon taking the back seat while Mark took the front. "Thank heavens it's not bucket seats," he said.

 

The night was actually quite warm, as midwestern summer nights are apt to be, but there was a light breeze, so stripping down to his t-shirt under the blanket was just about right. Sleep was not quick to come, however. It was not the chorus of night insects or tree frogs which kept sleep at bay, of course, nor even the mosquitos, which were plentiful. Lying quietly in the dark, it was not possible for Napoleon not to find himself missing Illya's presence powerfully. 

Even when they passed the night apart, as might happen frequently on a mission, Napoleon's sense of him, how he was doing, whether he was asleep or awake, frightened or amused or angry, never faded from his awareness. Now it felt as if there were some kind of barricade in his mind—something blocking him from feeling his partner and bond mate.

There was a thunk on the roof of the car, and the scritch of claws on the vinyl covering. Napoleon reached with his mind, instinctively, for what he knew he should be able to feel from Illya's spirit guide, but this too was blocked. From the front seat Napoleon heard a muffled sigh. There was a small furry presence curled miserably on the hood and the faint shadow of Mark's hand was visible, reaching out for her on the car's dashboard.

"We'll get through this, one way or another," Napoleon murmured, as much to himself as Mark.

"It's been five years, mate," Mark said, pained. "Five years since I've been alone inside my head. It's a bloody wretched state of affairs, I don't mind telling you."

Napoleon heard the passenger side front door open and a moment later April's ocelot disappeared from the hood. Mark shifted in the front seat and then Napoleon could hear him murmur softly to his Sentinel's bereft spirit guide. "We'll bring her back luv, soon as we can. Help is coming, I can feel it."

There came another scritch of claws from the roof and then Illya's falcon was perched in the open window above Napoleon's head. He reached up to stroke soft, pale feathers and felt a dry beak reach down to touch his fingers. "I know, I know," Napoleon sighed. "We'll get through this. We have to."

Above, perched on the back seat, Napoleon's otter kept alert watch, as did Mark's elk, standing steadfastly beside the car. Much would be demanded of them tomorrow, and they both needed their sleep, so Napoleon forced his mind to quietude, as he had learned to do in the war. It was not the most restful of sleep, but far better than none.

Later, Napoleon was faintly aware of Abigail coming to the car and passing the watch on to Mark. He dozed another hour or two and then woke gradually to an awareness that someone unfamiliar was approaching their position. He woke further then, eyes finding his otter still keeping watch from the back window, and saw that he seemed untroubled by this new presence… but that would be because it was a Guide. Now Napoleon could hear the faint noise of a small motor far down the road but drawing closer. Mark was just visible in the dim, predawn light, standing alert at their periphery, hand over his holster but not on his gun.

Eventually the motorbike put-putted to a halt at the edge of the wide shoulder where they were parked and the rider killed the engine. "Howdy, folks," he called out.

"Morning," replied Mark.

"Name's Ricky Holden, from Holden dairy just up the way," he thumbed over his shoulder. "I was up doing the first milking this morning and as I was finishing up a, ah, little bird told me that there was some folks up the road what could use my help. You those folks?"

"A… little bird?" Mark asked.

"Well, most folks can't see him, but maybe y'all can…" At this, a robin—rusty-red breast visible even in the faint light—swooped down from the canopy to land on the stranger's shoulder. Mark's elk strode forward to greet him first, but Napoleon's otter was loping after him a second later.

"Greetings, fellow Protector," said Abigail, stepping out of the camper in a long flannel nightgown, hair mussed from sleeping. "We are, in fact, the folks who could use your help."

Young Mr Holden came up to park his motorbike next to the rental Dodge and the three Guides introduced themselves. Abigail immediately fired up the kerosene lantern and set the percolator on the camp stove then went to change, and Napoleon decided he might as well relieve Mark, who'd gotten less sleep than Napoleon. In the light of the lantern, Napoleon got a better look at their new Guide—young, freckle-faced and with straw blonde, short cropped hair.

Napoleon introduced himself once he'd put on a clean shirt and then gave the fellow a brief description of UNCLE's involvement with recent events in Chillicothe. The dairy farmer had never heard of UNCLE, but declared that any organization where Guides and Sentinels would agree to lend their talents was likely to be a worthy one.

"My family's lived down the road from Deadman Cave for three generations," he said about the current situation. "And we all knew there was something… wrong about the place. My grandpa, who was a Guide too, said that the Holden family never had Guides or Sentinels till we settled here, so maybe we was meant to do a job here, keeping watch."

"I'm quite interested to hear that, Mr Holden," Abigail said, reemerging in jeans and a t-shirt, with her hair braided up. "I'd love to interview any family members of yours who might be willing, to talk about their experience living here."

Coffee was poured while additional introductions were made, then Abigail told her part of the story, about the legends and history of the cave, though she didn't tell the story she'd shared last night. An hour or so later another car drove up and pulled off the road a few yards away, but no one got out immediately. After another little while the passenger door opened and reason for the delay became clear.

"Don't you get on your high Sentinel horse with me, Mr Spencer Railing!" the woman preparing to depart declared. "Them boys was telling the truth when they said it weren't safe for Sentinels to be here, and they was telling the truth when they said they needed Guides. Now I'm gonna get out here and join these good folks and you're gonna turn this car around and…"

"I ain't leavin' you alone with a bunch of strangers, Lindy! You can't ask me to do that…"

Napoleon wasn't sure if his presence would help or hinder, but his otter harbored no such doubts, and neither did Illya's falcon or April's ocelot. The three spirit guides headed straight for the idling car but Illya's falcon arrived first, landing with an intimidating thump on the hood, directly in front of the driver. He screeched, mantling his feathers and spreading his wings in a clear threat.

The ocelot and ottered stood in the pool of illumination cast by the car's dome light out the open door and a woman now stepped forth, crouching to greet the animals there. A small brown owl hopped out of the car beside her.

"Why look at you all! Aren't you sweet!" she cried. "Yes, I'm coming to help you, and Spencer understands now… don't you, honey?"

Napoleon didn't hear his reply, but Abigail was stepping forward now and Napoleon figured she'd have better luck setting Spencer the Sentinel at ease than he would. Indeed, a few moments later Lindy closed the door and stepped clear of the car, which then made a neat three point turn and sped away, back down the road towards Chillicothe.

Further introductions were made over more coffee and Napoleon learned that Miss Lindy Beldavs was a librarian, and waiting to marry her Sentinel, volunteer fireman Spencer Railing, till he got on full time with the Chillicothe Fire Department. She'd never heard of UNCLE either, but was indifferent. She was here to help the other Guides and their Sentinels, and that was all that mattered to her.

As the new day dawned a handful of cars came to pass them on the road, carrying people on their way home from a night shift, or starting an early one in town. A few slowed slightly to peruse the encampment as they passed, but no one bothered them. Mark emerged from the Dodge again around the time that the first bright rays of sun came to pierce the morning haze, and another car pulled up around that time as well.

This one contained two Guides—Dahlia Smart, a bonded Guide who had left her Sentinel, school bus driver Omer Gosling, back in town with orders to stay there, and Andy Birch, an unbonded Guide and Chillicothe Animal Control officer. Dahlia, who was black, seemed almost shocked to realize that everyone could see her tawny hare spirit guide, and had been half convinced that it was a hallucination most of her life and Andy, surprisingly enough, had only ever seen his own spirit guide, a black bear, a handful of times. Both of them joined the circle of the other spirit guides without the least fuss, and gradually their Guides came to feel more at ease too.

Once he'd gotten some coffee into him, Mark came to introduce himself to the newcomers as well, and revealed to everyone that he'd uncovered some new information.

"I grabbed this notebook out from one of the desks in the Thrush lab," he said, as the others sat on Abigail's folding chairs or perched on the circled cars. Abigail herself was now preparing a breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese on the camp stove. Napoleon had already given everyone a basic briefing on UNCLE's role in the current affair, as well as explaining what Thrush was, but more than a couple of the Guides were not clear on how Thrush was involved.

"I got to reading it last night, when I couldn't sleep," Mark continued, "and it looks to be a journal, possibly belonging to the John Doe scientist we picked up. The writer seems to have been some sort of brainwashing and behavioral programming specialist for Thrush, and it looks like they had found some historical accounts of people being influenced, mentally, by something in or near Deadman Cave.

"It also looks as if the operation to take over the jail was carried out by another division of Thrush, so he only arrived once the connection to the cave through the prison had been established and the lab already built. He writes that from the beginning some of the key personnel seemed less enthusiastic about Thrush's goals, and obeyed his instructions only grudgingly, but that could be typical Thrush arrogance. Then he writes about how one of the prison guards, a Sentinel, he mentions, insists on taking him to see something deeper in the cave.

"He thinks the fellow is a nuisance at first, but then he agrees, in order to get him to leave off… and then the whole style of his writing, even his handwriting changes."

"Got a taste of his own medicine, eh?" Napoleon said.

"He doesn't even realize it a first," Mark said with distaste. "He writes immediately afterwards about how easy it will be to convince this creature to help Thrush, that its goals and Thrush's are the same, and how well they'll work together. Then, little by little, he stops writing about Thrush at all, but only about how he's going to help this creature get free, how much it loves him, and all that rot."

Napoleon shuddered all over, remembering the video of the interrogation.

"So, this Thrush organization actually thought they could control the Deadman Cave monster, to help them control other people's minds, but then it ended up controlling theirs?" asked Dahlia. "Man, who didn't see that coming?"

Lindy, the librarian, gave a wry chuckle. "But Dahlia, I see you checking out the latest science fiction novels every week," she said. "Some megalomaniac bent on world control probably never thought about the possible downside of trying to control a mind-controlling monster, and definitely wouldn't read the kinds of stories that explore such things."

Napoleon and Mark exchanged glances. "D'you suppose we ought to put more science fiction on UNCLE's suggested reading lists for agents?" Mark asked. "I never thought of it in those terms before, but now that she mentions it…"

Before Napoleon had to answer, the sound if a familiar, if ill-tuned, engine could now be heard approaching.

"Just in time," said Abigail with satisfaction. "Here comes our caving gear."

It was, in fact, Dan Hoover's rattletrap pickup truck, followed by an equally disreputable looking, windowless van, but the fellow who emerged was so unmistakably a high school science teacher that everyone immediately relaxed.

"This here is Mr Nichols, our geology teacher," Luther introduced. "He's in the Chillicothe Grotto, and he says he wants to talk to you about what all happened in the cave."

"Walter Nichols," the fellow introduced himself to Napoleon, extending his hand to shake. "I also brought along some of the Grotto's extra gear, seeing as I heard you folks might be fixing to take a larger group down into Deadman Cave."

"Napoleon Solo, of the U.N.C.L.E.," Napoleon returned. "I hope these boys haven't been accused of any vandalism. My colleague and I can certainly testify that they've been nothing but helpful, and quite strict about our safety."

"Not by me they haven't," replied the teacher with a warm smile. "I'm quite familiar with what a stickler for safety and cave ecology our young Mr Hoover and his friends are. He contacted me because he heard that more people could be joining you for a descent today and wanted to be sure that everyone was properly equipped. He also suggested that you'd found evidence of a new side passage leading from Deadman Cave to the state penitentiary. Is that right?"

"We found an electrical cable," Mark confirmed. "And we've assumed that the penitentiary is the most likely origin. Confirming that origin may be a bit complicated, however."

"That complication wouldn't be the 'monster', now would it?" asked Nichols, skeptical, as one might expect a science teacher to be.

"As an expert in international espionage, Mr Nichols, I am just as disinclined to believe in 'monsters' as you. Believe me," Napoleon replied. "But something caused my Sentinel and partner, and his as well," Napoleon indicated Mark, "to be afflicted with delusions and disappear into the lower, unexplored regions of this cave. The John Doe who was picked up on the road near here also exhibited an obsessive desire to return to something in the depths of Deadman Cave. Now I don't know what you want to call that, but monster seems as apt a name as anything else."

Nichols replied with an affable shrug. "I don't have the first notion of how Sentinels and Guides work, but it's clear they do, whether science understands 'em or not," he said. "I do know for a fact that caves are dangerous places, and not always for the reasons we expect. I'm here to make sure that everyone who goes in does so in the safest way possible, so far as we know how."

For this Napoleon expressed his sincere appreciation, and helped the man as he opened up the van and laid out the various helmets, lamps, boots, coveralls, ropes and other equipment those entering the cave would need. There was some discussion of who would and wouldn't be making the descent, as there was concern that any non-Guides might be vulnerable. Mr Nichols and the two boys both insisted that at least one experienced caver go with them however, and in the end Mark and Napoleon had to agree that Dan and Luther, by their calm and level-headed actions in yesterday's misadventure, had both earned the right to fill that role.

Thus the party that stood at the mouth of the culvert, each one helmeted and equipped with helmets, headlamps, ropes and boots, consisted of Napoleon and Mark, Abigail, the four local Guides—Lindy, Dahlia, Ricky and Andy—and their two cave guides, Luther, up front this time, and Dan, bringing up the rear. Mr Nichols remained to keep an eye on things above, alert the authorities if they didn't come out by noon, and to be on guard for approaching strangers who would not cross the salt circle. He expressed a healthy skepticism about this as well, but agreed to beware nonetheless.

The local Guides had been apprised of the task that awaited them once they passed the ruined lab and ventured beyond. Their spirit guides had become acquainted with each other, and seemed, to Napoleon's great relief, to understand the task at hand. They'd all become somewhat less visible once the non-Guides had arrived, but Napoleon still caught glimpses of them, and Illya's and April's as well, from time to time. He saw them as they ducked into the culvert, and sensed their determination, no less than his, to find their lost Sentinels and wrest them from the vile thing that held them in bondage. They would accept no other outcome.

 

The first stretch of their clambering, crawling and slithering course down into the depths of the cave were just as Napoleon recalled it from yesterday. Three of the four local Guides had never been in a cave before (Andy had gone down a cave after a lost dog once) but, to Napoleon's relief, none of them seemed to exhibit any claustrophobia.

"I'll tell you what," commented Dahlia after the first stretch of belly-crawling. "This ain't how it is on Star Trek." That was the closest to a complaint anyone had, however, and when they came to pause in the first small room, the mood was upbeat. The mood shifted to determined once Dan had given them a little briefing on the next series of obstacles and passages and they headed off once more.

It was Ricky who had the most trouble with the short chimney, but he overcame his fear of heights and lowered himself down to where Luther and Abigail waited. Once half the party was down, Luther went on ahead to reattach the rope on the steep slope leading into the big room. It was Abigail who remained near the front with the presence of mind to direct Napoleon to put his feet here, or duck down there, for the further they got into the cave the more anxious he grew in his searching to find Illya's presence again.

He hardly felt the cold water in his boots, or heard Lindy and Dahlia's excited cries at their first sight of stalactites. Napoleon knew he must be getting closer to Illya, but he could not yet sense it and the need to do so drove him and Mark as well. They did not speak as they climbed, crawled and waded.

When they finally slid down the slope leading to the big room, Napoleon saw all their spirit animals waiting for them, even Andy's black bear and Mark's elk. The four Guides saw them too as they arrived, stilling their exuberant shouts of relief.

"You can see where the room curves, just ahead," Abigail said to the newcomers. "Beyond that we will find the ruined lab, and beyond that, somewhere, is the lair of our enemy. Here, I think, is where we should gather ourselves and begin the joining."

"I agree," Napoleon said, taking his cue from his otter's tugging at his trouser cuff. Thrush had caused a little damage in this room, but the atmosphere remained undisturbed, as it would not be in the ruined lab. All the spirit guides now gathered into a circle in the center of the room, their human Guides following in their wakes. Dan and Luther stood to one side and stared, wide-eyed, at the assembled group.

"Them ain't natural animals," Dan said, hushed voice still reverberating around the chamber.

"No, they ain't," Luther agreed. "They's part of Sentinel-Guide magic. I had a great aunt what was a Guide. She said it was only special times that folks like us'd see such a thing."

"Right she was," said Abigail. "And since you can see them, you can help them, and us, find the passage continuing further from the lab. They may know which direction to go, but you'll know how to find a passage that actually goes that way."

"Yes, ma'am, we can sure do that," said Dan.

Now the Guides took each other's hands as they stood in a circle and Napoleon's otter, Mark's elk and Abigail's chipmunk stepped to the center. As before the three spirit guides lowered their heads, their forms beginning to dissolve into a spreading luminescence. The other animals stepped forward to join them and Napoleon felt himself drawn once again into their sphere of awareness, first with Mark and Abigail, then with the others, the farmer, the librarian, the waitress and the dog catcher.

Andy gave a sort of surprised laugh, and Dahlia, a brief delighted sigh, like a child holding a kitten for the first time.

"Lead the way, Luther," Abigail requested, and so he did.

They moved like a procession along the bank of the underground stream, the larger spirit animals seeming at times to pass through the rocks on either side. They paused when they came to the ransacked lab, but then Illya's falcon and April's ocelot appeared by one of the still upright computer terminals. The other spirit guides, appearing as vague luminescent forms now, all drew toward that spot and, on a nod from Napoleon, Luther moved forward, shining his headlamp down into an opening between two boulders.

"Looks like it goes, maybe, hang on." Luther beckoned Dan forward and the two of them consulted for a moment, then Dan disappeared into the shadowy gap.

"Dan's littler, so he usually checks out new passages first," Luther explained. Scuffling sounds could be heard from the dark and occasional glimmers of light seen, then came Dan's voice, triumphant.

"Hell, yeah!" he shouted. "This goes. And there's lotsa footprints too."

With a few pointers from Luther on how Dan had gone, the other's quickly followed. "At worst," Napoleon speculated quietly to Mark, "this'll lead to the jail, but the way our spirit guides were pointing…"

"They've got to be leading us to April and Illya," Mark concluded. Then they were descending a slope of large boulders and had no breath to spare for conversation. A muddy-floored passage followed, which struck Napoleon as a bit too regular—a notion that was reinforced when his lamplight fell on a bit of the wall where the criss-crossing black lines were not a natural formation in the rock, but a pattern drawn with charcoal or ink… or something else leaving a dark stain.

He started to call Abigail's attention to what he'd spotted, but she'd already stopped, headlamp aimed at the wall before her and staring at the revealed mural. When Napoleon stepped back he could see that the crosshatching he'd noticed at first depicted a wide, wave ruffled sea, with an island appearing near where Abigail stood. Strange vessels could be seen on the sea and in the sky, approaching the island from every direction.

"Now, this is like Star Trek!" Dahlia commented. "There's spaceships, and aliens flying 'em!"

Indeed, the occupants of the vessels, both flying and floating, were clearly something other than human. So was the great temple that squatted on the apex of the island. The architecture depicted in loving detail by the artist was not only otherworldly, but disturbingly so.

"What the heck language is that?" asked Lindy, pointing to an inscription above the temple gates.

"An unreadable language for an unspeakable name," Mark murmured. "I wouldn't look at it for too long, if I were you."

"So I ain't the only one who's got a galloping case of the creepies?" Ricky asked.

"Not at all," replied Abigail. "Let's keep moving."

Something in her voice put Napoleon back in mind of the joining they'd made together, and soon he had renewed his connection with all of the Guides. It came none too soon, for at last they began to feel the presence of the thing for whom the picture had been made. It grew around them like a miasma, and continuing down the passage, they passed yet more disturbing and otherworldly illustrations and felt the miasma deepen.

Within this oppressive atmosphere, their Guide's joining shone like a beacon. It allowed them to press forward down the passage, even with the sense of oppression growing stronger, the closer they got. Finally Dan stopped.

"Feels like… like the air's bad," he said, panting but more out of fear than lack of oxygen.

"I know what you mean," Luther said. "I don't think it is, but I dunno if it's safe to go on or not."

Napoleon, Mark and Abigail exchanged a quick glance and then Napoleon's otter was off down the passage. It returned a moment later and Napoleon knew that the boys' caving skills would not be needed up ahead.

"I think it's got to be Guides only from here on," Abigail said, pulling something out of her jacket pocket.

"Why don't you boys go back and wait for us where we came out from the lab," she suggested, handing them a box of Morton's salt. "And while you're waiting, make a salt barrier across the path. I have a feeling it may come in handy."

Dan frowned reluctantly. "It ain't going by the regular safety rules, but…" he began.

"This ain't no kinda regular cave, Dan," Luther finished for him. His friend nodded in concordance. "We'll wait," Luther agreed, "but we'll be watching the time. If'n you don't come back in an hour…?"

"Then you boys high-tail it back to the surface and tell Mr Nichols," Napoleon instructed. "Don't even think about coming after us."

"Nosir," Dan said promptly. "We'll do just as you say."

~*~ ~*~ ~*~


	5. Act IV: "Your Guide has found you!"

Napoleon and Mark took point once the two cavers had turned back, feeling, at last, more like UNCLE agents infiltrating an enemy base, and less like National Geographic explorers. They kept their lamps focused away from the disturbing depictions on the walls, instead trying to illuminate the passage as far ahead as possible. The dim form they both spotted lying in the path did not quite catch the light as a normal object, however, for it gave off a faint illumination of its own.

"Bloody hell!" Mark exclaimed. "It's another spirit guide; but whose?"

As if in answer, Abigail gave a pained cry and suddenly bolted from behind the two UNCLE agents, dashing ahead to drop to her knees before the creature, who appeared, as they drew closer, to be a fox.

"You're the one I dreamed about!" Abigail cried, gathering the dejected looking creature into her arms as her chipmunk guide climbed onto its shoulders, tail switching in agitation. "You begged for my help and I said I was coming, but I didn't know! I didn't know I'd find you here!"

"It must be her Sentinel," Napoleon realized. "There must be another Sentinel down here along with Illya and April!" Beside him, Mark suddenly straightened.

"The Park Ranger!" he exclaimed. "One of the missing persons reports we pulled up when we were trying to identify our John Doe. A Park Ranger from the Mound City National Monument had gone missing around a week ago…"

And Sentinels, Napoleon knew well, often turned to jobs like Park Ranger, as it suited their temperaments and skills so well. If her spirit guide was here then she was still alive, but after a week…

"Her strength is failing," Abigail said from where she sat. "We must hurry!"

"And hurry we shall!" said Mark gallantly.

It was, in fact, only a little ways past where Abigail had found her Sentinel's spirit fox that the passage made a turn and then opened out suddenly. To the left a descending passage joined theirs, and electric light spilled out from it, throwing some illumination into the larger room beyond.

"Bet that leads right to the jail," Napoleon said, indicating the lit passage. No one offered to take him up on it, however, for their eyes were now drawn to the great chamber beyond.

In spite of the ready availability of electricity, it was lit with burning torches—a dozen or more braced on the walls and all around the main dais. The abundance of the light there drew all their eyes, but the nature of the monstrosity presiding there made them all immediately tear their eyes away, wishing, impossibly, to unsee even the slightest glimpse.

As a boy at summer camp, Napoleon had once cut open a rotten log to find a queen termite, her massive, fleshy body, bigger than his thumb and pulsing with the white mass of her countless eggs, and her tiny black head and forelimbs, haunting his nightmares for years to come. This vision encompassed all the horror of that one and expanded upon it exponentially.

The thing glistened, the expanse of its quivering flesh gleaming greenish and pus-white in the torchlight. Its head, high above the blobulant mound of its body, was too small, had tentacles where it ought to have a mouth, huge, insect-like eyes where it ought to have ears, and a sickening, slavering, toothless mouth where it ought not have anything.

Beside him, Napoleon heard Mark utter a vile profanity which seemed mild compared to the living blasphemy which stood before them. He saw Ricky make the sign of the cross over himself and heard Dahlia retching in a corner. It was his otter which roused Napoleon from his horrified paralysis, tugging at his pants cuff once more to draw his attention to a corner, where the light from the torches did not fall. Three shadowy forms were barely visible there which might merely have been largish stalagmites, but on closer examination proved to be three kneeling figures, one slumping with exhaustion… or starvation.

"Illya!" Napoleon cried, and as if the word had broken some spell, or perhaps activated his own Guide magic, Napoleon felt the luminous power of the joined Guides expand to fill the room. It illuminated the place where Illya, April, and a third person wearing the khaki colored uniform of a Park Ranger knelt. All three shuddered in response, and one, Napoleon could not identify the voice, gave an agonized cry of denial.

"April!" Mark called out with his strongest Guide Voice. "April Dancer, your Guide needs you!"

"Illya Kuryakin!" Napoleon called in turn. "You Guide is here for you. I'm right here Illya!"

"My Sentinel!" Abigail cried, voice all but breaking. "My Sentinel, I've found you. Your Guide has found you!"

"Armstrong," Mark said, the name of the missing Park Ranger surfacing in his memory and reverberating through the network of joined Guides. "Her name is Laura Armstrong."

"Laura Armstrong," Abigail repeated, coming forward to drop to her knees at her Sentinel's side. "I'm your Guide! You found me in my dreams and I've come for you! I've come for you! Please don't let it be too late!"

When her fox spirit guide came up to join them as well, the slumped Ranger gave a sort of gasping sob and raised her head. Her gaze was met immediately with that of her Guide and Napoleon felt the moment of Recognition ring through the joining. With the last of her strength the newly bonded Sentinel raised her hand to touch her Guide's face.

"You found me," she rasped, voice rusty with lack of use. "My very own Guide… You found me."

The hushed words belied the strength of the blow they delivered to the excrescence presiding on the dais. It gave a gargling, bowel curdling, shriek of outrage, whose upper notes ascended into a range beyond human hearing but which disturbed Napoleon's very being nonetheless. The protective aura of the Guide joining grew stronger and more resolute in response and now Napoleon saw his own Sentinel stir where he knelt, reaching out as if groping in the dark at first, until Napoleon reached out to catch his hands.

"I've got you, Sentinel," Napoleon said, drawing him to his feet. "I'm here."

"Napoleon!" Illya choked out, voice uncharacteristically panicked. "Chyort! Where am I? What's happened?"

Gathering his Sentinel in his arms, feeling their link reestablish itself to its fullest once again, Napoleon had eyes and ears for his partner alone. He was aware, through the Guide joining, that Mark had drawn April out of her enthrallment as well, and that now three Sentinel and Guide pairs stood free, though one was very barely standing, in this chamber of horrors. Even as Lindy and Andy darted forward to lend their support to Abigail and her weakened Sentinel, the thing that had held them in thrall roared out its displeasure.

It writhed and shrieked, flailing its tentacles and other unidentifiable appendages, but though not a word could be heard over its reverberating cries, not one of the Guides or Sentinels there needed any further instructions. As one they turned to exit the chamber with nothing standing in their way, but Napoleon and Mark made sure they were the last to leave.

They knew that countless enthralled thugs would soon be arriving from the penitentiary, regardless of whether or not any attempt had been made to clean out the facility yesterday. They also knew that using explosives in a cave while you are still trying to leave it is a risky business indeed, but a calculated risk they had already decided upon. April and Illya lingered with them, naturally, as they waited for the others to get further down the passage, then Napoleon and Mark set the two small charges they'd prepared, one above the passage leading to the jail, the other at the front of the 'temple' chamber where the creature resided. They set the delay for 30 seconds, then ran.

The others had paused at the far end of the mural passage, where Dan and Luther waited, but Napoleon shouted for them to get moving.

"Don't wait!" he shouted. "It's called for help and we don't want to be here for them to catch us!"

Dan and Luther wasted no time helping folks up the rocky stretch and back to the wrecked Thrush lab, letting Mark and Napoleon bring up the rear. They and their Sentinels had barely stumbled into the lab when the twin thuds of the explosions were heard, and a plume of rock dust was forcibly ejected into the lab from the passage they'd just left.

To Napoleon's relief, the two dedicated cavers did not waste one word on the UNCLE agents' apparent act of reckless vandalism, but only worked diligently to guide everyone back out of the cave. The steep, mud-slicked slope out of the large room and the rope climb up the short chimney were navigated with as little fuss as possible, the two cavers showing remarkable competence in assisting Abigail's less than able Sentinel to manage these obstacles.

So focused was he on guiding his Sentinel's every footstep through the journey, that Napoleon felt almost disoriented when they stumbled out of the final rocky cleft and into the culvert. They found the others waiting there, resting against the rounded sides just out of the trickle of water flowing through the middle, blinking their eyes against the midday sun angling in on one end. There came a grating, shifting sound from the dark passage they'd just left and Luther stepped over to shine his flashlight back the way they'd come.

"Dang," he said. "A big rock just come down and blocked the way. Guess that's the end of Deadman cave."

"The end of that entrance, anyhow," Abigail said. "That thing's never, ever going to stop trying to get out. Not till the end of time."

"Yeah, but we aren't going to forget about it now," Napoleon answered. "And we're going to take steps to make sure we won't, ever again. As a Guide, I swear it."

And every Guide in that culvert swore the same.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

 

Getting Abigail's Sentinel up the slope to the road was a cakewalk compared to getting her up the chimney in the cave, and getting her settled in the bed in her VW camper was easier still. Abigail heated up some broth for her and tended to her Sentinel's immediate needs while everyone else stripped out of their caving gear and returned it to Mr Nichols. Napoleon wanted nothing but to crawl into the back of the Dodge with his Sentinel, and didn't even care if Mark and April were similarly occupied in the front, but knew there was some mopping up to do before he could.

He made a brief initial report to Mr Nichols, by way of an apology to the local Grotto chapter about the use of explosives in the cave, leaving Dan and Luther to fill him in on the details. The unexpected appearance of the missing Park Ranger had gone a way towards allaying the science teacher's skepticism. Personally, Napoleon thought that Dan and Luther ought to get some sort of cave safety/rescue award for their help in getting Ranger Armstrong out, and he intended to see to it later.

Once the situation with Mr Nichols was sorted, Napoleon had left just enough presence of mind to see to it that neither he nor Mark nor Abigail were driving. It was Ricky Holden, who agreed to leave his motorbike to collect later, who drove the Dodge into town, with Mark and April huddled together in the front seat, and Illya and Napoleon silently clutching at each other in the back.

Lindy drove Abigail's van and, once in town, delivered her passengers to the local emergency room, while the others converged on the Mayberry sized, Chillicothe police station. As soon as they were clear of the radio jamming from the penitentiary, Napoleon had contacted UNCLE to let them know he and the other agents were out of harm's way and that a proper UNCLE mop-up team would be needed at the prison. He then informed them that no further briefing would be coming from any of the agents involved in the affair for twenty four hours, and signed off.

At the police station, Napoleon marched in (a silent and subdued Illya in-tow, as he would not leave Napoleon's side), informed the already overwhelmed desk sergeant that someone should be sent to the hospital to resolve a missing persons case, and that none of the UNCLE agents would be available for statements until tomorrow afternoon. He left the four Guides there to give their accounts and before he left they'd been joined by Lindy and Dahlia's Sentinels, who'd been waiting, not terribly patiently, in the nearby diner.

Mark and April were still sitting, silently locked in each other's embrace, in the Dodge, now parked in front of the police station. With some effort Napoleon was able to pry Mark loose long enough for him to indicate where their hotel was, and induce him, with his equally shell-shocked Sentinel, to lead the way, fortunately just around the corner.

Once in the hotel, Mark and April disappeared instantly into their room, while Napoleon had to retain his presence of mind long enough to not punch the receptionist when he explained that their rooms had been rented out when they hadn't checked in yesterday. He counted it as a positive miracle that he did not actually resort to physical threats when he instructed the clerk on duty that they would take the Presidential Suite, since that was the only available room, but that they would not be billing UNCLE for any more than a regular room. It was quite possible that the clerk might have felt some implied threat in Napoleon's demeanor, but that was in no way his fault.

The only thing 'Presidential' about the Presidential Suite was that it was half again as big as the other rooms, it had a hot plate and a mini fridge, and the bed was king sized. This was the only thing that registered on Napoleon's mind as he all but dragged his barely responsive Sentinel into the room. Illya did seem to be aware enough of his surroundings that once in the room, with the door locked, he began to sag, knees buckling, and would have crumpled to the floor had Napoleon not caught him and and man-handled him to the bed.

All he could do then was hold his Sentinel close, rock him gently as he shook, whispering soft words of comfort. When it occurred to Napoleon that Illya hadn't eaten in over a day, he patted down his pockets until he found one of the Space Food Sticks that Mr Nichols had handed out to everyone, with the instruction that no one should go into a cave without a backup snack. He peeled the wrapper off and lifted Illya's head, kissing his eyes and mouth as he did, to rouse him as gently as possible.

"You need to eat something, Sentinel mine," he said. "This isn't much, and it isn't much like food, but it'll help ground you."

Illya drew a reluctant breath and complied, consuming the unappetizing snack in a few bites. His trembling had subsided by the time he finished, however, and his sigh, when he was done, had a note of relief in it.

"Napoleon," he breathed, reaching up to touch his Guide's face.

"Right here, partner," Napoleon replied. "Not going anywhere."

"I don't… I don't understand what happened," he murmured, burying his face against Napoleon's shoulder. "How did it, that thing… It made me forget you. How could it do that? How could I...?"

Illya's hands fisted in Napoleon's shirt and Napoleon rocked him gently, stroking fingers through his hair, gently rubbing his back. "Nobody knows what that thing was… and I don't want to know," he said. "It was wrong… It shouldn't even be at all; not on this planet anyhow."

"But how could I…?" Illya moaned, voice breaking now, which was a terrible, wrong thing to hear. "How could anything make me forget you… us?"

"It couldn't; it didn't, Illya," Napoleon comforted. "Nothing could do that, but it blocked us, our sense of each other, like a jamming field. Like a wall. I couldn't reach you, either. Your spirit guide couldn't even reach you."

"I thought I knew what it was to be alone," Illya murmured. "Thought it was easy to endure, but not like this. Was never so alone like this."

"Oh, my Illya," Napoleon held his Sentinel close, his own voice breaking. "You don't know how brave you were, how you fought that thing. Just think, there must have been three or four Sentinels at least among the prisoners and guards that were turned by that thing. It used them like puppets, and it must have wanted you too, but you fought it. You fought and it fought back, isolating you more and more so you'd give up, but you didn't. You didn't let it in."

"I didn't," Illya choked out. "I couldn't. It used every one of my senses against me, but I couldn't let it win."

"You couldn't," Napoleon confirmed, placing a kiss on the top of his Sentinel's head. "Because your senses are mine to command and no one else's. So you see, you didn't forget me at all."

"I didn't!" Illya cried in triumphant realization. "I didn't, Napoleon, but now I need…"

"Shh, my Sentinel, I know just what you need," Napoleon said, for he did. Illya would have withdrawn his senses for his own protection, until he was all but numb, deaf and blind. He would need his Guide to coax his traumatized senses into stretching open once again, and Napoleon knew just how that was to be done.

Gently laying his partner down on the bed, Napoleon moved quickly to divest them both of their muddy shoes. Likewise, he removed their belts and unfastened his own trousers and the top of his shirt. Then he stretched them both out in the center of the bed, Illya laying partially atop him, face tucked into Napoleon's shoulder.

"You're safe now, Sentinel," he murmured into Illya's ear, both hands lovingly cradling his head against his body. "You're home and safe and off duty. Now you're under my protection."

"Yes," Illya sighed, almost moaning in relief, and Napoleon could feel the body resting on his relax a degree.

"Now we're going to bring your senses back, one at a time, little by little," Napoleon said, voice pitched to soothe. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," Illya nodded with another sigh.

"All your senses are pulled back in, as far as they can go, and that's fine," Napoleon began. "You did that for a good reason, but now you're safe; nothing is trying to hurt you now, so you can relax them. Leave them closed for now, but at rest. Can you do that?"

"Yes," Illya murmured. "Yes, I have it."

"Good," Napoleon stroked his hand over Illya's back and shoulders. "Now we're going to start with your foundational sense—scent. Think about where you are Illya—here with me—so you know what you're going to smell. You've learned me, Sentinel; I'm your home base, your anchor. Reach out and find my scent. I'm right here."

Moving at last with his own volition, Illya shifted to bury his face in the juncture of Napoleon's neck and shoulder. He drew in a deep, gathering breath, humming in gratitude as he exhaled.

"Napoleon," he sighed. "My Guide."

"Right here," Napoleon said fondly, nuzzling his partner's ear. "I've got you."

Illya drew another long lungfull of his Guide's escence, seeking blindly over his throat and collarbone for more. He sobbed as he exhaled, letting his head drop to rest on Napoleon's chest.

"Take it easy," Napoleon soothed. "Take you time."

But Illya was ready for more, it seemed, and had lifted his head once more to take in the scents of his partner's skin, and before long the flavors as well. Napoleon chuckled.

"Okay, moving on to taste, then," he said with a smile, which was quickly cut off with a gasp as Illya's tongue swiped across a nipple.

"You know my taste like I know yours, partner mine," Napoleon murmured. "Come and feast your sense of taste on me, Sentinel. I am here for you and you alone."

Napoleon had barely spoken the words before Illya surged up with a suddenness that shouldn't have been surprising by now, but still was. Illya's hands were on his face, and his mouth was on Napoleon's, not so much tasting as devouring, but Napoleon was more than prepared to devour right back. Napoleon lost himself in Illya's losing himself, in the universe of his taste and tongue and the way their two tongues moved together, sharing flavors that they alone knew. They were lost together until the moment when both had to break off and draw breath—breaths full of the scents of sweat and fear and desire and arousal.

"Now listen to my voice," Napoleon said, soft as velvet. "You've learned to fix on that too. You can pick it out it in a crowd of other voices; it can reach you when no one else's can. Stretch out your hearing, Sentinel. Hear my softest whispers… the faintest modulations…" And then he broke off, as Illya's tongue had found that special place behind his ear.

"I hear your voice Guide," Illya murmured, lips caressing his ear. "Now I want to hear it sing."

"Oh… whatever you desire, Sentinel," Napoleon moaned at the sensation of Illya's teeth on his earlobe. "I am here for you… for whatever you would have…."

Napoleon didn't think that Illya really needed to be told this at this point, but he liked saying it, almost as much as he liked Illya's mouth on him, wherever that happened to be. Presently it was headed back down toward his nipples. Napoleon let himself bask for a moment or two, in the sensation of Illya licking, kissing and nibbling his way across his torso, and in the presence of his Sentinel in his mind, stretching out once more to his full capabilities. He did not sing so much as moan and hum and gasp, but Illya seemed satisfied.

"Now touch," Napoleon said eventually. "Let yourself feel everything you touch, in every detail, in every texture." Illya's hands were moving under his shirt, opening it, pushing it off his shoulders. Napoleon's hands paused at the closure of Illya's shirt, making sure his Sentinel was ready.

"Yes," Illya hissed. "Need to feel you on my skin, your touch, everywhere… anywhere."

Napoleon obliged with pleasure, stripping Illya's shirt away to reveal the smooth contours of skin Napoleon's hands were hungry for. He knew that this was Illya's hunger as much as his own, but he loved knowing that it was Illya who guided him, all but possessed him in this yearning. Skin pressed against skin as Illya lay his body against Napoleon's and his hands wandered wherever they could reach.

Before long they had slipped down below the open waist of Napoleon's trousers. "Oh, god, Illya…" Napoleon ground out at the feel of his Sentinel's large, strong hands cupping the cheeks of his ass. He could not stop his hips thrusting… and Illya did not want him to.

"Yes, Napoleon, more!" Illya cried, thrusting back, grinding their pelvises together. It sent a hot rush of desire through Napoleon's body and he let loose a long, deep groan, as his hands reached for the fastening of Illya's trousers. 

"Yes," Illya hissed once more, giving Napoleon the permission he'd been waiting for. Illya had already gotten Napoleon's pants out of the way and was working on the underwear. Years of experience in escaping various types of bonds made removing Illya's trousers, while at the same time aiding him in doing the same for himself, easier than it might have been. Before long, Napoleon was completely divested of everything but his socks and Illya's shirt was off and his trousers and shorts down around his ankles. Then there was just glorious skin against skin, every surface of his body ravenous to touch and be touched.

For a spell they simply revelled in it, writhing and grappling each other in complete abandon. Then Illya went back to tasting, chasing Napoleon's headier scents and tastes, around the base of his cock, his testicles, and deeper still. Illya's tongue caressed as it tasted, laving widely here, probing slickly there. Napoleon sang for him then, and swore and shouted, and Illya took it all in with relish.

Illya finished up with a long, wet lick along the length of Napoleon's fully erect cock, then knelt up, regarding his Guide with a look that was both fond and rapacious. It was a look that generally rendered Napoleon senseless with desire, for it carried both Illya's intent and his appreciation for what he gazed upon.

"Feast your eyes, lover," Napoleon sighed. "This sight is for yours alone. Whatever your eyes find pleasing, drink it in, Sentinel." He ran a hand over his torso, finishing with cupping his cock and balls, lifting them like an offering.

"There is no more beautiful sight to a Sentinel than his Guide," Illya murmured, feasting as instructed. "No more alluring voice, no more desirable scent or delicious flavor… no touch more compelling, than yours, my Guide."

"Then, touch, taste, sate your senses," Napoleon commanded. "No Guide knows any greater desire than to serve their Sentinels… just like this."

Illya was upon him even before the words had left Napoleon's mouth, but he was ready nonetheless. His Sentinel's hands were everywhere, and his mouth followed, kissing here, biting there. Napoleon touched back, tracing the contours of Illya's muscled shoulders, kissing fingertips when they came near enough. He let Illya lead the way, setting the pace for how much stimulation he wanted.

Eventually Illya's mouth found Napoleon's cock, which elicited an almost musical groan from Napoleon. His following vocal offerings were even more so, though punctuated by gasps and pleading cries.

"Fuck, Illya, please!" Napoleon cried as Illya took the full length of Napoleon's cock as deep as he could and held it there, breathing hard through his nose. When he finally moved, it was to withdraw tortuously slowly, making Napoleon keen for the gradual loss of warm, wet heat encompassing his sex. Illya held the head in his mouth when he came to the end, then slowly took it all back in again. Napoleon's hands grasped desperately at the bedclothes, and his hips strained to thrust, but were pinned firmly by Illya's arms.

Illya was never going to bring him off this way—delicious torment though it was—but Napoleon was fairly sure that this was by intent. He seemed to be working towards something, and Napoleon had a good idea what it might be. He hoped he was right in any case. The problem was, that if Illya did have it in mind to fuck him, then they needed an item from his shaving kit, which was currently packed in his suitcase… which was in the car… which was parked around the corner in front of the police station.

Illya seemed to have picked up on his thought and had come to a pause, releasing Napoleon's cock to sit back on his heels. "What can we use…?" he mused, almost as if to himself.

"I'm trying to think of what…" Napoleon mused in reply.

"Do not move," Illya said after a moment, then rose from the bed (leaving his pants and underwear on the floor beside the bed) and padded over to the bathroom.

"Ah ha!" Napoleon heard from within and a moment later Illya returned, clutching a small, 'sample sized' bottle of something. "I knew I smelled some kind of lotion somewhere!"

What Illya dropped on the bed a moment later had the 'Jergens' label nearly covered by a larger sticker reading, "Compliments of the management'. Napoleon thanked the management sincerely but silently as he heard the sound of Illya slicking up his cock. Opening his thighs eagerly at Illya's prompt, Napoleon soon felt cool, slick fingers behind his balls, caressing, then moving further back to his entrance. Napoleon relaxed, craving the intrusion to come.

The first two fingers slipped in easily and Napoleon groaned, almost in relief, to feel them. It came to him suddenly how alone he'd been during Illya's disappearance, and to feel himself touched so deeply brought home suddenly that he had his Sentinel back, at last.

"Now, you will feel me, Guide," Illya purred. "As you can feel me again in your mind, yes?"

"Felt so empty without you," Napoleon whispered. "That thing stole you away and I couldn't do anything… didn't even know what it was."

"You were right," Illya comforted, his fingers pausing in their work as he leaned up to kiss Napoleon's face. "It was a thing that shouldn't be, but you did find a way to fight it, and you found me. You found me, Guide, and you always will… And now I will remind you what it is to have me inside you in every way."

Ilya's fingers began to move again, pressing deep and stretching, readying him for what he craved. Napoleon's body relaxed further, open to the intrusion as his mind likewise opened to Illya's presence—the emotional essence of his Sentinel. Holding that essence within him had come to seem as natural to Napoleon as feeling Illya enter him as he did now, with three fingers, plunging deep. They finally reached that place within him which triggered a flood of liquefying pleasure through his whole body—blood, bones and muscles. Whatever remained alert or attentive within him had to relinquish its hold, leaving Napoleon utterly helpless in his Sentinel's hands.

"Now…" Illya murmured, low and sultry. "Now you are ready for me, Guide."

Napoleon gave a broken sob at the sensation of his Sentinel's fingers slipping away, entirely lost in the moment, even as part of him was aware that something better was coming. First there was more lotion, momentarily cool against his skin, then the blunt, hard head of Illya's cock was pressing against his entrance. It slipped in with little effort, then continued, deeper and deeper, filling Napoleon as nothing else could.

He cried out, an animal sound, as he writhed mindlessly, his body moving to urges as basic as breathing. This was where the Sentinel dwelt—the fundamental, animal world of instinct, reflex and sensory response, free of the complications of intellect and artifice. Their coupling became an essential act, bodies responding to sensory stimulus, unburdened by reason or purpose, or even the passage of time.

They were fucking, two bodies moving in a rhythm as old as life itself, every thrust confirming the life it embodied; every sensation engendering the next breath or cry or upthrusting of hips. Napoleon became the very act of receiving, his body accepting the other's, seeking that which thrust into it, again and again, deeper and deeper. The hard flesh entering into his softest places, sparking pleasure with every stroke, the strong, grasping hands seizing his hips, the harsh breath in his ear, all were of that essence of their beings. They drank that essence, potent as that which quickens all life, were that essence, singular, eternal and timeless. They were all Sentinels and all Guides, from the dawn of time into the untold future.

Time came spilling back in soon enough, as Napoleon became aware of his own building climax, and of Illya's increasingly urgent breaths. Now each one was punctuated with a shout and Napoleon's keening cries became a litany of pleas and and swears he had no idea he was uttering. Illya knew—would always know—just what it was that Napoleon needed, just as Napoleon would always know what his Sentinel desired. Creature of instinct that he was, he knew by those very instincts, just when to close his lotion slicked fingers around Napoleon's cock, just how firmly to grasp it, and when and how fast to stroke.

He started slowly enough, so that Napoleon could see the end coming, like a freight train headed right for where he stood. It was just enough time to appreciate its coming, to rejoice in its imminence, and to surrender completely to its arrival. As the first wave of climax struck, Napoleon felt it move through him, like the force of an explosion, seizing and pulsing around the hard flesh still thrusting into him, redoubling his own pleasure and setting Illya's climax off in turn.

They lost time again, in that moment of soul searing rapture, lost their bodies and very selves in the ocean of ecstasy which crashed over them and tumbled them like so much flotsam, then carried them likewise to their shore, gasping like stranded fish. They welcomed the air that filled their lungs, however, felt it as the renewal of life that it was, and lay, still little more than creatures of sensation and instinct, basking in the ebbing waves of pure pleasure.

Stirred by those last little waves, Napoleon found his fingers moving through the flaxen strands of his lover's hair, even as he felt lips pressing gently over his collarbone. Little by little, his universe expanded to include the warm weight of Illya's body on his, the rough texture of the hotel bedspread beneath them, the last of the evening sun angling through the blinds to leave pinkish-orange stripes over the 'presidential' wallpaper.

There was a cooling stickiness between the two of them as well, and Illya's cock, still half inside him until Illya rolled slightly, pulling himself free. He smeared the cooling remains of Napoleon's release over his own body, as he always did—a disturbingly primitive practice that never failed to leave Napoleon with a little illicit thrill.

"Wild thing," Napoleon murmured affectionately. "I love it when you do that."

"Your wild thing," Illya replied, kissing Napoleon's face. "Now and forever."

Illya often preferred to spend the night absorbing his Guide's essence into his skin, but they'd both had enough of the two days worth of grime and cave mud they'd accumulated, so eventually prodded each other into the shower, which, being Presidential, was actually big enough for both of them. They enjoyed washing each other, but limited their pleasures to the practical as they'd both started to feel hungry by now.

The Chillicothe Inn had no kitchen, and therefore no room service, but they did have an arrangement with the diner, and a copy of their menu was conveniently set next to the phone. For a reasonable delivery charge, a young fellow with a scooter showed up about twenty minutes after they'd called in their order, with two cheeseburgers, a whole fried chicken, two orders of fries and one of onion rings, a chocolate milkshake and two pieces of pie, as per their request. Illya ate the lion's share and Napoleon watched him do so with delight.

 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~


	6. Epilogue: "...a good beginning."

The four UNCLE agents stopped by the hospital first thing after breakfast the next morning, to find Sentinel Armstrong finishing her own breakfast with her new Guide at her side. They were holding off the bonding they clearly were craving until Miss Armstrong had recovered from severe dehydration and malnourishment, so the hospital was restricting their visitors. They happily welcomed Mark, April, Illya and Napoleon, however.

"I can't begin to thank you enough," the Sentinel said, once they'd all crowded in to her room. "Abigail explained to me that you'd come for your own Sentinels, but you must permit me some gratitude. I wouldn't have held out much longer, and my Guide could never have found me without your help."

"Well, without your Guide's knowledge none of us would have been found," Illya replied.

"All true," April said. "Mark explained to me what you taught him about Guides working together. You know, we've worked with Sentinels and Guides all over the world and I've never heard of anything like it."

Abigail looked up with surprise to hear this, but soon glanced back down to where she and her Sentinel's hands were clasped. "We are all where we are meant to be, my Guide teacher often said to me," she said. "I have come to realize as well that there might have been more to my choice of Deadman cave as a study site."

"It was explained to me, by that wise old Sentinel back in Germany," Napoleon said. "That our spirit guides tell us things, even when we can't see or hear them."

"Even when you don't believe they exist at all," Illya added.

"I imagine there's a story to go with that which I hope to hear some day," Miss Armstrong said. "But probably more excitement than the nurses will approve for now." Abigail nodded and the four UNCLE agents took that as their cue to depart.

They'd arranged to meet at the police station next, along with the four Guides who'd taken part in the rescue, and their Sentinels. When they got there, Napoleon was not surprised to find that it was officer Cranston, the Sentinel, who'd been put in charge of closing the case.

"So I've just gotten off the phone with the Grotto," he began. "They've agreed to declare the whole Deadman Cave area geologically unstable and list the cave as unsafe and closed. County road crews will patch over the gap in the culvert sometime next week."

"And the State Prison?" asked Mark.

"The Feds, along with some other fellows in suits that we can only assume are connected to your bunch," officer Cranston nodded towards the UNCLE agents, "showed up late last night and sealed off the whole area. They say the situation is under control and we'll be notified of anything we need to know."

The reactions of the five Sentinels and six Guides sitting around the table varied from relieved to worried to dissatisfied, but none of them seemed to feel that the situation was entirely resolved.

"I believe our Miss Blackfish would remind us all," Napoleon spoke up, "that our duty here, as Sentinels and Guides, will not be concluded as long as the monstrosity below Chillicothe still lives. May I presume that I am currently addressing all the known Sentinels and Guides from this area, with the exception of Miss Blackfish and her Sentinel?" He was answered with nods all around. 

"In the nomenclature of European Sentinel and Guide councils," he continued, "Illya and I would be considered 'Alphas', by reason of the natural strength of our gifts. Now my Russian Sentinel here does not hold with hierarchies overmuch, so you may take from this that we do not believe that this position gives us any rights to command other Sentinels and Guides, but rather responsibilities, to see to it that Sentinels and Guides in our territory are protected and respected, to assure that where a Sentinel is needed, one can be found, and to be honest arbiters when conflicts arise between us."

"Okay, I got no problem with any of that," said Omer Gosling, Dahlia Smart's Sentinel. "But what is your fella's 'territory' exactly? Dahlia, she says you're stronger than any Guide she ever met, but you're not exactly from around these parts."

"You're right about that," Illya answered him. "And until we meet anyone stronger, I'd say that our region would be the whole of North America."

"But… he's a Rooskie!" objected Spencer Railing. His Guide, Lindy Beldavs, silenced him with a scathing look. 

"It's how he was raised," she apologised. "He'll come around once I've explained things."

"It's hard in a little town like this one," Officer Cranston said, "for folks to trust outsiders or to get used to new ideas."

"Naturally," Napoleon said. "And you shouldn't have to. Not if we organise things properly. Illya and I have our own work cut out for us, and we don't need to be managing every Sentinel in the US and Canada. You should have a local Alpha, and honestly, Officer Cranston, it ought to be you, but you're going to have to make one important change."

The police officer had been nothing but calm and collected throughout all their dealings with him, but now his eyes went wide and he flashed an almost panicked glance in the direction of Ricky Holden. "Do you have any idea what a scandal it was when Dahlia and Omer got together?" he asked. "The KKK actually held a rally at a nearby farm, just because she was black and he was white. I could lose my job if people knew…"

"As regional Alpha you won't be able to keep your bonded Guide a secret," Napoleon replied. "And if you do get fired because your bonded Guide happens to be male, the Chillicothe Police Department is going to find itself the subject of a Justice Department investigation, which will probably result in their having to chose a new Chief of Police. That is exactly the kind of thing that will come under our purview as Alpha Sentinel and Guide pair of North America."

With a sigh, Ricky Holden now stood and walked around to table to sit beside his distressed Sentinel, taking his hand in his two. "I told you, Ted," he said softly. "The locals, they don't know 'cause they don't want to know, but you can't hide this kinda thing from other Sentinels."

"How long have you two been together?" April asked kindly.

"Couple of years now," Ricky said. "We tried at first to pretend it wasn't happening, but in the end we just couldn't."

"I know how that goes, believe me," Illya said sympathetically. At this Officer Cranston looked up in surprise.

"Lord, I thought I was the only Sentinel in the world dumb enough to try and deny his own Guide," he said, making Napoleon laugh out loud.

"Let us take you out for a beer after you come off duty," Napoleon said. "We have a story I think you'll enjoy hearing. In the meantime, as UNCLE agents and Sentinels and Guides, our last duty here is to make sure that the monstrosity under Chillicothe never goes unwatched. As your Guide was there with us and saw the thing we saw, you have a good idea of just why this is so critical. Do you accept this charge?"

"I do understand," the police officer said earnestly. "And I accept the charge. That means I can put other local Sentinel and Guides on watch as well, yes?"

"Absolutely," Illya said. "And I'd say you would do well to spread the idea, of local Sentinels and Guides in other areas organizing and forming their own groups. I imagine Miss Blackfish would be willing to help in that regard."

Cranston nodded. "I bet it'll catch on pretty quick," he said. "Seems like we ought to have had this kinda thing some time ago."

"You're not wrong about that, guv," said Mark. "I wouldn't be surprised if it catches on like a bloomin' wildfire."

Napoleon didn't think he'd be surprised either. In fact it already all seemed meant to be.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

 

They all met once more a couple of days later, before the UNCLE agents left, in the hospital gardens. They were already calling themselves the Chillicothe Pride, though no one could think of who'd used the term first. Over the past 24 hours, the UNCLE agents had filed their initial reports with UNCLE, tied up all their loose ends with the local police, and had seen to it that Dan and Luther would each receive a Citation of Merit from the National Speleological Society for taking part in a cave rescue, and a full scholarship to the Colorado School of Mines as a token of appreciation from UNCLE itself.

In addition they'd convinced state authorities not to close the Chillicothe Penitentiary, but merely to ban Sentinels from either working or serving time there, and to promise to keep at least one Guide on staff at all times. This ingratiated the agents to the townsfolk to the point that their money was practically no good in any shop in town, but also did much to bolster the image of the local Pride, even when officer Cranston announced the identity of his Guide.

"Our police chief didn't speak to me for a whole day after the news came out," he said to the group sitting on the grass beside a bed of climbing roses. "But he had to watch half the folks in town come by to congratulate us and wish us the best while he sat in his office and sulked. We think he's fixin' to retire at the end of the year."

"Any idea who's going to replace him?" April asked only a little pointedly.

"Ain't supposed to talk about it," the officer said, looking away as his Guide leaned up to kiss his cheek.

"It's a good beginning for us," Abigail said. "And for all Sentinels of the New World. Our beginning here in Chillicothe is also the beginning for a new era for Sentinels and Guides in the Americas. Our deeds here will be seen as foundation of this new era, and I would say we have done well."

"Done well, and done just in time," said Miss Armstrong, looking considerable improved already. "That… thing has been a cataclysm waiting to happen since the prison was built, maybe even before. We're lucky you UNCLE folks came along when you did. I know I am."

"I don't know if I'd call it luck," Abigail said thoughtfully. "The Shawnee believed that our 'Watchers' got their gifts from the Earth herself; that she calls them and their Protectors into being when the tribe's need is great. Your family, Mr Holden, came to the Chillicothe valley just about the time the protective artifacts were removed from the old mounds, and according to your grandfather, that's when the first Guides started to appear in the Holden family line. In short, I don't believe that any of this is coincidence."

"Speaking of the protective artifacts," Napoleon said. "Our director told me that your tribal council should be hearing from someone at the British Museum soon. It's been impressed upon them the importance of these items being back where they belong."

Abigail's jaw actually dropped open at this news, and her Sentinel wrapped an arm around her to tug her her close. "You see, Guide?" Miss Armstrong said. "What must happen, will happen."

Before they left Chillicothe, the four agents agreed to return for whatever rededication ceremony the Shawnee would surely perform once the artifacts were back in their possession, assuming they were able. Napoleon had a feeling they would be. He also had a feeling he'd be hearing more about Sentinel Prides cropping up around the US. He and Illya didn't leave any of this out of their reports on the concluded affair, but Waverly did not raise the issue once during their post mission debrief.

Napoleon thought he would be relieved not to have to discuss it, but afterward he found himself beset with questions about this omission. Illya, of course, was happy to let it drop, but Napoleon couldn't. He caught the old man in his office just before they left for the day and raised the issue himself.

"I confess that I am perplexed," he said as Waverly got his hat and coat. "That you didn't question our entirely extra-curricular establishment of a non-UNCLE related organization while on an UNCLE mission. I don't by any means think that what we did was wrong, but we weren't at all certain if you'd be pleased about it or not."

They'd come down the hall to the elevators as he spoke, and found Illya waiting there. Waverly pulled on his pipe for a moment, waiting for their car to come. "You must realize, Mr Solo, we're used to Sentinels having their own networks and hierarchies where I come from," he said at last. "When I determined to employ Sentinels and Guides at UNCLE, I knew that I'd have to give them leeway to manage their own Sentinel affairs, even as UNCLE agents."

The elevator arrived and they all stepped inside, Waverly pausing in his pipe smoking. "Sentinel business and UNCLE business are two separate things, but I am quite convinced they are mutually supportive," he continued. "Having established Prides in North America can only further UNCLE's goals, I would say, but how you go about it is entirely up to you. Inasmuch as UNCLE supports this goal, however, I imagine that you and Mr Kuryakin will find yourselves with a higher proportion of North America based affairs in the near future, if you have no objection."

Illya and Napoleon exchanged glances as the car slowed. "None whatsoever, sir," Illya said as Napoleon beamed. Waverly bid them goodnight then and two agents made their way out to the lobby and to then the street. 

"I confess to finding it somewhat ironic, that a supposedly rational, Soviet Russian has become the Alpha Sentinel of North America," Illya said after a while. "And if I take Miss Blackfish seriously, I must additionally assume that something is somehow 'meant' by it."

"You mean, something like East and West should come together to make the world a better place?" Napoleon asked, leaning up against his Sentinel affectionately. "Welcome to the revolution, tovarisch."

=FIN=

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What was real:
> 
> The Ohio town of Chillicothe (pronounced Chil-le-koth-ee)  
> Mound City Group National Monument (Now the Hopewell Culture Historical Park)  
>  -including the history of the site, its use as a military base and the removal of   
> artifacts to the British Museum  
> The National Speleological Society (aka, 'the Grotto')  
> The Shawnee Indians, who really did originally live in that area  
> The golf course (Forest E Everhart Memorial Golf Course, open since 1940)  
> A 'Deadman cave' does exist in the Chillicothe area, but not where I placed it  
> The Trail of Tears most certainly did happen, but the Shawnee were not among tribes   
> who were forced onto it (though individual natives of other tribes and mixed   
> descent were probably also caught up)  
> Space Food Sticks
> 
> What was not:
> 
> The State Prison exists there now, but was not there in the 1960s  
> Any of the native myths and legends in this story  
> The Shawnee lawsuit for objects excavated from the mounds (there are a number of similar lawsuits ongoing in the US and Canada, but I made this one up.)  
> Any of the businesses or buildings in Chillicothe  
> Ancient, mind-controlling alien monsters trapped underground in the American midwest


End file.
